SEATTLE — A federal jury on Friday convicted a former Seattle tech employee of a number of fees associated to an enormous hack of Capital One financial institution and different firms in 2019.
Paige Thompson, 36, a former Amazon software program engineer who used the web deal with “erratic,” obtained the private data of greater than 100 million individuals — a knowledge breach that prompted Capital One to succeed in a tentative $190 million settlement with affected prospects. The Treasury Division additionally fined the corporate $80 million for failing to guard the information.
Following a seven-day trial, the Seattle jury discovered her responsible of wire fraud, unauthorized entry to a protected pc and damaging a protected pc. The jury acquitted her of different fees, together with entry machine fraud and aggravated identification theft.
Thompson’s attorneys argued that she struggled with psychological well being points, by no means supposed to revenue from the information she obtained, and mentioned in court docket papers “there is no such thing as a credible or direct proof that a single individual’s identification was misused.”
Federal prosecutors mentioned she didn’t simply steal the information, but additionally planted software program on servers she unlawfully accessed to steal computing energy to mine cryptocurrency.
“Removed from being an moral hacker making an attempt to assist firms with their pc safety, she exploited errors to steal useful knowledge and sought to counterpoint herself,” Seattle U.S. Lawyer Nick Brown mentioned in a information launch.
Wire fraud is punishable by as much as 20 years in jail, whereas the opposite fees can carry a five-year most. U.S. District Decide Robert Lasnik is scheduled to condemn Thompson in September.
In interviews with The Related Press following her arrest, associates and associates described Thompson as a talented programmer and software program architect whose profession and habits — oversharing in discussion groups, frequent profanity, expressions of gender-identity misery and emotional ups and downs — mirrored her on-line deal with.
At one level, two former roommates obtained a safety order in opposition to her, saying she had been stalking and harassing them.
Thompson joined Amazon in 2015 to work at Amazon Internet Companies, a division that hosted the Capital One knowledge she accessed. She left that job the following yr.
Some associates mentioned they believed the unemployed Thompson — destitute and, by her personal account, grappling with severe melancholy — believed the hack might carry her consideration, respect and a brand new job.
“She needed knowledge, she needed cash and she or he needed to brag,” assistant U.S. lawyer Andrew Friedman instructed the jury, based on the information launch.
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