September 1, 2016
Marcel Lehel Lazar, 44, of Arad, Romania, a former cab driver turned hacker who used the name Guccifer, was sentenced to 52 months (4 years 4 months) in prison by a US court.
Lazar pleaded guilty to all charges after he spent almost two years fighting extradition charges in Romania.
US authorities officially indicted Guccifer in June 2014, but only in March 2016 did they manage to extradite him to the US.
Lazar hacked over 100 US citizens
Lazar pleaded guilty to all nine indictments, which included three counts of wire fraud, three counts of gaining unauthorized access to protected computers, and one count each of aggravated identity theft, cyberstalking, and obstruction of justice.
Authorities said Lazar hacked into the email and social media accounts of over 100 US citizens.
His most famous victims include former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the daughter of former President George H.W. Bush, and US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
For all incidents, the hacker released documents and email correspondence online. Lazar didn’t leak documents from Hillary Clinton’s private email server but did so with other private Clinton messages that led to the discovery of her hidden email server.
While waiting for sentencing in the US, Lazar claimed responsibility for hacking the Clinton email server, but the indictment didn’t include this hack.