A Virginia man, Sohaib Akhter, faces decades in prison after a jury convicted him of being involved in a scheme to delete approximately 96 databases containing US government data.
The events of the case transpired around two weeks before the twin brothers allegedly involved were fired from their jobs at a software supplier to the US government. Sohaib and Muneeb Akhter, both 34, allegedly worked together on February 1, 2025, to access the account of an unnamed individual who submitted a complaint through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s public portal.
Read more…
Source: The Register News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- FBI IC3 Logs 6 Million Complaints – Record Increase in Reporting Brings IC3 to New Milestone
May 14, 2021
It took nearly seven years for the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) to log its first million complaints. It took only 14 months to add the most recent million. The IC3 logged five million complaints on March 12, 2020, a few weeks before it marked its 20th anniversary. After a period of record reporting, the ...
- Colonial Pipeline paid close to $5 million in ransomware blackmail payment
May 13, 2021
Colonial Pipeline reportedly paid the ransomware group responsible for a cyberattack last week close to $5 million to decrypt locked systems. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that two people close to the matter said a blackmail demand was agreed to within hours of the cyberattack that has impacted the fuel giant’s systems for close to a week. On ...
- Incremental improvements are not enough as Biden signs order boosting US cyber posture
May 13, 2021
United States President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to boost the cyber posture of the federal government. The order points to recent incidents including the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, Exchange vulnerabilities that led to the FBI removing web shells from US servers, and the SolarWinds attack. The order said the federal government must ...
- Hacker group behind Colonial Pipeline attack claims it has three new victims
May 12, 2021
The hacker group DarkSide claimed on Wednesday to have attacked three more companies, despite the global outcry over its attack on Colonial Pipeline this week, which has caused shortages of gasoline and panic buying on the East Coast of the U.S. Over the past 24 hours, the group posted the names of three new companies on ...
- US and Australia warn of escalating Avaddon ransomware attacks
May 10, 2021
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) are warning of an ongoing Avaddon ransomware campaign targeting organizations from an extensive array of sectors in the US and worldwide. The FBI said in a TLP:GREEN flash alert last week that Avaddon ransomware affiliates are trying to breach the networks of manufacturing, ...
- DarkSide ransomware will now vet targets after pipeline cyberattack
May 10, 2021
The DarkSide ransomware gang posted a new “press release” today stating that they are apolitical and will vet all targets before they are attacked. Last week, the ransomware gang encrypted the network for the Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer Related story: Colonial Pipeline cyberattack shuts down pipeline that supplies ...

