A U.S. Military soldier who pleaded responsible final week to leaking telephone information for high-ranking U.S. authorities officers searched on-line for non-extradition international locations and for a solution to the query “can hacking be treason?” prosecutors within the case stated Wednesday. The federal government disclosed the small print in a court docket movement to maintain the defendant in custody till he’s discharged from the army.
One in every of a number of selfies on the Fb web page of Cameron Wagenius.
Cameron John Wagenius, 20, was arrested close to the Military base in Fort Cavazos, Texas on Dec. 20, and charged with two legal counts of illegal switch of confidential telephone information. Wagenius was a communications specialist at a U.S. Military base in South Korea, who secretly glided by the nickname Kiberphant0m and was a part of a trio of legal hackers that extorted dozens of firms final 12 months over stolen information.
On the finish of 2023, malicious hackers discovered that many firms had uploaded delicate buyer information to accounts on the cloud information storage service Snowflake that had been protected with little greater than a username and password (no multi-factor authentication wanted). After scouring darknet markets for stolen Snowflake account credentials, the hackers started raiding the information storage repositories utilized by a few of the world’s largest firms.
Amongst these was AT&T, which disclosed in July that cybercriminals had stolen private data and telephone and textual content message information for roughly 110 million individuals — almost all of its prospects. AT&T reportedly paid a hacker $370,000 to delete stolen telephone information. Greater than 160 different Snowflake prospects had been relieved of information, together with TicketMaster, Lending Tree, Advance Auto Elements and Neiman Marcus.
In a number of posts to an English-language cybercrime discussion board in November, Kiberphant0m leaked a few of the telephone information and threatened to leak all of them until paid a ransom. Prosecutors stated that along with his public posts on the discussion board, Wagenius had engaged in a number of direct makes an attempt to extort “Sufferer-1,” which seems to be a reference to AT&T. The federal government states that Kiberphant0m privately demanded $500,000 from Sufferer-1, threatening to launch all the stolen telephone information until he was paid.
On Feb. 19, Wagenius pleaded responsible to 2 counts of unlawfully transferring confidential telephone information, however he did so with out the good thing about a plea settlement. In coming into the plea, Wagenius’s attorneys had requested the court docket to permit him to stick with his father pending his sentencing.
However in a response filed immediately (PDF), prosecutors in Seattle stated Wagenius was a flight danger, partly as a result of previous to his arrest he was looking out on-line for the way to defect to international locations that don’t extradite to america. In keeping with the federal government, whereas Kiberphant0m was extorting AT&T, Wagenius’s searches included:
-“the place am i able to defect the u.s authorities army which nation won’t hand me over”
-“U.S. army personnel defecting to Russia”
-“Embassy of Russia – Washington, D.C.”
“As mentioned within the authorities’s sealed submitting, the federal government has uncovered proof suggesting that the charged conduct was solely a small a part of Wagenius’ malicious exercise,” the federal government memo states. “On high of this, for greater than two weeks in November 2024, Wagenius communicated with an e-mail tackle he believed belonged to Nation-1’s army intelligence service in an try to promote stolen data. Days after he apparently completed speaking with Nation-1’s army intelligence service, Wagenius Googled, ‘can hacking be treason.’”
Prosecutors instructed the court docket investigators additionally discovered a screenshot on Wagenius’ laptop computer that instructed he had over 17,000 recordsdata that included passports, driver’s licenses, and different identification playing cards belonging to victims of a breach, and that in one in all his on-line accounts, the federal government additionally discovered a pretend identification doc that contained his image.
“Wagenius must also be detained as a result of he presents a critical danger of flight, has the means and intent to flee, and is conscious that he’ll doubtless face further costs,” the Seattle prosecutors asserted.
The court docket submitting says Wagenius is presently within the strategy of being separated from the Military, however the authorities has not acquired affirmation that his discharge has been finalized.
“The federal government’s understanding is that, till his discharge from the Military is finalized (which is anticipated to occur in early March), he could solely be launched on to the Military,” reads a footnote within the memo. “Till that course of is accomplished, Wagenius’ proposed launch to his father ought to be rejected for this extra purpose.”
Wagenius’s curiosity in defecting to a different nation to be able to escape prosecution mirrors that of his alleged co-conspirator, John Erin Binns, an 25-year-old elusive American man indicted by the Justice Division for a 2021 breach at T-Cell that uncovered the non-public data of at the least 76.6 million prospects.
Binns has since been charged with the Snowflake hack and subsequent extortion exercise. He’s at present in custody in a Turkish jail. Sources near the investigation instructed KrebsOnSecurity that previous to his arrest by Turkish police, Binns visited the Russian embassy in Turkey to inquire about Russian citizenship.
In late November 2024, Canadian authorities arrested a 3rd alleged member of the extortion conspiracy, 25-year-old Connor Riley Moucka of Kitchener, Ontario. The U.S. authorities has indicted Moucka and Binns, charging them with one rely of conspiracy; 10 counts of wire fraud; 4 counts of laptop fraud and abuse; two counts of extortion in relation to laptop fraud; and two counts aggravated identification theft.
Lower than a month earlier than Wagenius’s arrest, KrebsOnSecurity revealed a deep dive into Kiberphant0m’s numerous Telegram and Discord identities through the years, revealing how the proprietor of the accounts instructed others they had been within the Military and stationed in South Korea.
The utmost penalty Wagenius might face at sentencing consists of as much as ten years in jail for every rely, and fines to not exceed $250,000.
