Assumption University student pleads guilty to hacking and extortion

An Assumption University scholar has agreed to plead guilty to hacking two U S based companies and extorting the companies for ransom according to the Department of Justice Personnel say Matthew Lane of Sterling agreed to plead guilty to one count each of cyber extortion conspiracy cyber extortion unauthorized access to protected computers and aggravated identity theft According to court filings between April and May Lane and others extorted a ransom payment from a telecommunications company and threatened to publicly share customer details that was stolen from the company s computer arrangement Functionaries say when the company requested if payment would end the threat Lane allegedly responded We are the only ones with a copy of this records now Stop this nonsense or your executives and employees will see the same fate Make the correct decision and pay the ransom If you keep stalling it will be leaked Lane allegedly used login credentials to access the computer grid of a second victim company a tool and cloud storage company serving school systems in the U S Canada and other places He is accused of causing personally identifying information PII of students and teachers stored in the system to be transferred to a computer server he leased in Ukraine The Department of Justice says the company and others received threats that the PII of over million students and million teachers would be leaked worldwide if the company did not pay a ransom of M Bitcoin Functionaries say plea hearing has not yet been scheduled by the court