DOJ: Man hacked networks to pitch cybersecurity providers and products
Oeisdigitalinvestigator.com:
A Kansas Metropolis man has been indicted for allegedly hacking into computer networks and using this web precise of entry to to advertise his cybersecurity providers and products.
According to the Department of Justice, Nicholas Michael Kloster, 31, of Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, breached two computer networks, a neatly being membership enterprise and a nonprofit group.
According to the indictment unsealed on Friday, Kloster had been concerned and not using a less than three incidents investigated by the FBI against an equal collection of organizations no longer named within the report.
The first incident came about on April 26, 2024, round nighttime, when Kloster breached the premises of a neatly being membership that operates extra than one gyms within the divulge and acquired web precise of entry to to its programs.
Subsequent, he despatched an email to 1 of many fitness center’s owners claiming he had hacked their computers and promoted his providers and products within the the same message, it sounds as if in search of to web hired by the firm for safety consulting providers and products.
“I managed to avoid the login for the protection cameras by utilizing their viewed IP addresses. I moreover acquired web precise of entry to to the GoogleFiber Router settings, which allowed me to use [redacted] to explore person accounts associated to the domain,” reads the electronic mail shared within the indictment.
“If I’m able to reach the files on a person’s computer, it indicates ability for deeper procedure web precise of entry to.”
As well to the contracting proposal to the fitness center owner, the U.S. Department of Justice says Kloster reduced his month-to-month fitness center membership price to love minded $1, deleted his roar from the fitness center’s database, and stole a workers member’s identify mark.
Weeks later, the suspect posted a screenshot on social media showing the fitness center’s safety digicam procedure below his withhold a watch on.
Later, on Will also 20, the indictment says Kloster physically breached a nonprofit group and accessed a restricted field where he outdated a boot disk to circumvent authentication requirements and bag web precise of entry to to snug recordsdata.
Kloster allegedly put in a virtual personal network (VPN) on the nonprofit’s computer and adjusted account passwords.
The DOJ says his actions precipitated an estimated data of $5,000 to the nonprofit, which needed to remediate the intrusion and catch their programs following Kloster’s intrusion.
In the end, Kloster is accused of using stolen credit rating card recordsdata from his used employer, a third firm, to amass ‘hacking thumb drives’ designed to profit from inclined programs.
If proven responsible, Kloster would possibly perhaps well face sentences of as much as 15 years in penal advanced (5 years for unauthorized web precise of entry to + 10 years for reckless pain), fines, and restitution to the victims for financial losses.
