He wanted to get rich quick, and now he risks spending 35 years behind bars.
Daniel Ryan from Kansas City (USA) is on trial for attempting to blackmail an industrial company in New Jersey. Law enforcement officers detained the 57-year-old man on August 27, 2024. The former engineer is accused of extortion, intentional damage to a secure computer, and fraud using electronic means of communication.
According to the investigation, the company’s employees received an email demanding a ransom. The attacker claimed that he had blocked IT administrators’ access to the network, deleted data backups, and threatened to shut down 40 servers every day for 10 days unless he was paid 20 bitcoins (approximately $750,000 at the time).
US Department of Justice reportedThe company reported that Ryan had gained unauthorized access to the company’s computer systems by remotely logging into the administrator’s account. He planned to perform several tasks on the network, including changing administrator passwords and shutting down servers.
Investigators found that the suspect used the Windows net user utility and the PsPasswd tool from the Sysinternals suite to modify the domain and local administrator accounts. He changed the passwords to «TheFr0zenCrew!». Ryan also used a hidden virtual machine to remotely access the administrator account from his work laptop.
If convicted, Ryan faces 35 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.
Source: TheHackerNews
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