September 22, 2024

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Former Amazon worker convicted in Capital One hack

Signage is displayed at the external of a Capital One Monetary Corp. cafe department in Walnut Creek, California, U.S., on Tuesday, July 18, 2017.

Bloomberg | Getty Pictures

A former Amazon Internet Services and products worker used to be convicted of hacking into Capital One and stealing the information of greater than 100 million other folks just about 3 years in the past in one of the crucial biggest knowledge breaches in the US.

Paige Thompson, who labored for the device large as an engineer till 2016, used to be discovered to blame on Friday of 7 federal crimes, together with cord fraud, which carries as much as two decades in jail. The opposite fees, illegally getting access to a safe laptop and harmful a safe laptop, are punishable by means of as much as 5 years in jail. A jury discovered Thompson no longer to blame of annoyed identification robbery and get right of entry to software fraud after 10 hours of deliberations, a unlock mentioned.

Prosecutors argued that Thompson, who labored beneath the identify “erratic,” created a device to seek for misconfigured accounts on AWS. That allowed her to hack into accounts from greater than 30 Amazon purchasers, together with Capital One, and mine that knowledge. Prosecutors argued Thompson extensively utilized her get right of entry to to one of the servers to mine cryptocurrency that went to her personal pockets.

“She sought after knowledge, she sought after cash, and she or he sought after to gloat,” Assistant United States Legal professional Andrew Friedman mentioned of Thompson in ultimate arguments throughout the week-long trial. 

Capital One in December agreed to pay $190 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the breach, along with an previous settlement to pay $80 million in regulatory fines. The information stolen integrated about 120,000 social safety numbers and more or less 77,000 checking account numbers, in step with the criticism.

An lawyer representing Thompson didn’t in an instant reply to a request for remark.

U.S. District Pass judgement on Robert S. Lasnik set Thompson’s sentencing for Sept. 15.

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