A grand jury on Wednesday announced the verdict for Capital One hacker for breaching and mining data. Amongst the equipment confiscated by the police belonging to the hacker included a server on which the hacker stored info.
The Information Was Attained Through Capital One Banking Application
33-year-old women named Paige A. Thompson, a local resident, and former Amazon employee stole social security info and other information of more than a 100 million Capital One customers through their online banking app. Luckily Thompson failed to secure credit card and online banking login passwords.
In a press release, the bank said: “free financial monitoring along with identity protection, will be offered to those affected.” They further assured customers that steps were taken to address these problems
Found Guilty On Two Accounts
According to the police, the stolen financial data included the financial information of at least 30 different governmental or private institutions and businesses operating in or outside the United States. U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran in a press briefing told the media that Thomson had been found guilty of two accounts of unauthorized intrusions into stored data of 30 different companies
Investigators didn’t find any proof of data being sold or disseminated. According to investigators, Thompson created software that detected breaches in the firewall of the cloud computing system which allowed outside commands to access the company servers.
Furthermore, she used stolen computer power to mine cryptocurrency for her own benefit, a practice known as “crypto-jacking.
Cyber Security Experts View
According to cybersecurity experts, this is the biggest cybercrime of the year. From the end of 2018 and till the near end of 2019, reports of various companies getting hacked have come forth. The name of tech giants like Apple, Samsung, Google, and Facebook have all popped up in the news in one form or another concerning data theft.
One expert while commenting on the matter said digital technology and the inventiveness of the human mind are evolving at an unprecedented rate. There is a dire need to introduce a system that allows us to govern them to maximize the positive potential and eliminate the negatives.
