US Soldier Accused of Verizon and AT&T Hacks Pleads Responsible

Cameron John Wagenius, a former US Military soldier, pleaded responsible to his function in a hack that affected AT&T and Verizon and resulted within the theft of information from effectively over 100 million prospects of the businesses, according to TechCrunch. Wagenius, a 20-year-old stationed in Texas, copped to 2 counts of “illegal switch of confidential cellphone information info” and can face a tremendous of as much as $250,000 and as much as 10 years in jail for every of the fees.

Wagenius was taken into custody final 12 months after being indicted for his alleged function in a hack of the 2 main wi-fi carriers. AT&T reported that the breach allowed the hacker to entry “nearly all” of its customers’ phone records, together with histories of calls and texts made by its customers, over a six-month interval in 2022. Greater than 110 million had been notified of the breach as a result of their knowledge was impacted. Verizon equally reported that it had a big assortment of buyer name logs stolen.

Each of the hacks that concerned Wagenius are believed to be associated to Snowflake, a cloud providers and knowledge analytics supplier. It’s believed that Wagenius and his alleged accomplices had been capable of entry knowledge from AT&T, Verizon, and greater than 160 different corporations together with Ticketmaster and LendingTree by means of unprotected accounts that had entry to Snowflake buyer accounts. Prosecutors allege that the hackers had been capable of entry every part from social safety numbers and driver’s license numbers to passport particulars and banking info.

Two different folks have additionally been indicted concerning the Snowflake hack: Connor Moucka and John Binns. In line with the Justice Division, the 2 had been capable of steal “billions of delicate buyer information,” and efficiently used that entry to extort three victims, who in the end paid no less than 36 bitcoin (valued at $2.5 million on the time of cost) to the hackers. Their extortion marketing campaign ran from November 2023 to October 2024, shortly earlier than they had been in the end charged and arrested.

Moucka, who lives in Canada, didn’t precisely draw back from discussing his function within the hack. He was in communication with 404 Media main as much as his arrest and informed the publication believed regulation enforcement was after him. Binns, an American who was dwelling in Turkey, additionally didn’t draw back from media. He took direct credit score for the breach of AT&T in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Wagenius, by comparability, was a bit extra press-shy—however apparently didn’t have the strongest OPSEC, as investigators like Brian Krebs had been capable of pinpoint his id primarily based on discussion board posts and on-line exercise.