extorsion

An American soldier arrested for extortion linked to a data leak at AT&T and Verizon

A US Army soldier, Cameron John Wagenius, aged 20, has been arrested for suspicion of extorting money from AT&T and Verizon after a data leak exposed sensitive client information. The arrest is attributed to the mother's statements linking him to Kiberphant0m, a known cyber criminal who had previously sold stolen voice recordings from these companies. The indictment does not mention specific victims or hacking activities. Wagenius' primary role was allegedly to obtain money from data obtained during the breach. A major AT&T failure is linked to one of the ransom threats, involving the theft of personal details for almost all clients, including call records and cell site identification numbers. AT&T paid a ransom equivalent to $373,000 to recover the deleted data. Kiberphant0m also offered stolen Verizon Push-to-Talk (PTT) call recordings on BreachForums, targeting mainly American government agencies and emergency responders. [Plus...]