Former U.S. Army soldier Cameron John Wagenius pleaded guilty to hacking telecommunication companies and attempting to extort them by threatening to release stolen files, the Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.
According to the DOJ, Wagenius, who went online with the nickname “kiberphant0m,” conspired to defraud 10 victim companies by stealing their login credentials, using brute force attacks and other techniques, and then used Telegram group chats to transfer the stolen credentials and discuss hacks.
Read more…
Source: TechCrunch News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- Poland says hackers breached water treatment plants, and the US is facing the same threat
May 8, 2026
Poland’s intelligence service said it detected attacks on five water treatment plants where hackers could have taken control of the industrial equipment inside, including, in the worst case, tampering with the safety of the water supply. The story is relevant beyond Poland’s borders: U.S. water infrastructure has faced similar threats in recent years. In 2021, a ...
- DOJ says ransomware gang tapped into Russian government databases
May 6, 2026
A U.S. court has sentenced Latvian hacker Deniss Zolotarjovs to more than eight years in prison following his conviction for carrying out ransomware attacks. The Justice Department accused the hacker of working for a notorious Russian ransomware gang called Karakurt, which was led by former leaders of the Akira and Conti ransomware gangs, who were sanctioned ...
- How ChatGPT conversations became ‘a treasure trove’ of evidence in criminal investigations
May 2, 2026
Days before two University of South Florida graduate students went missing last month, a roommate of one of the students allegedly asked the AI chatbot ChatGPT an unusual question. “What happens if a human has a put (sic) in a black garbage bag and thrown in a dumpster,” Hisham Abugharbieh asked on April 13, according to ...
- FBI: Hackers making millions from stolen cargo – losses ‘surged’ to nearly $725 million in 2025
May 1, 2026
The FBI has warned cybercriminals are increasingly targeting cargo shipments with hacking and impersonation tactics – and making a hefty profit doing so. With incidents rising 18% in 2025 and the average value per theft up around 36% (to $273,990) due to criminals targeting high-value goods, losses in the US and Canada alone hit around $725 ...
- CISA flags data-theft bug in NSA-built OT networking tool
April 29, 2026
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning anyone who uses GrassMarlin, a tool developed by the National Security Agency (NSA), about a new vulnerability that attackers can use to snoop on sensitive information. First reported by Grady DeRosa, senior industrial pentester at Dragos, the weak spot affects all versions of GrassMarlin, a tool developed ...
- Chinese engineer stole US military and NASA software for years
April 28, 2026
International espionage isn’t always about sophisticated malware and zero-day bugs. Sometimes it’s as simple as pretending to be someone else asking for a favor. For four years, a Chinese aerospace engineer did just that. Dozens of researchers at NASA, the US military, and major universities handed him exactly what he asked for, and possibly violated US ...