New Delhi: A former female engineer of Amazon Web Services (AWS) was found guilty of breaking into the cloud storage systems of more than 100 million users and collecting information related to the 2019 Capital One breach. AWS is the cloud division of retail behemoth Amazon. In connection with her plan to hack into cloud computing accounts and steal data and computing resources for her own gain, Paige Thompson, a 36-year-old former tech worker, was found guilty in Seattle’s US District Court of seven federal felonies. After Capital One informed the FBI of Thompson’s hacking behaviour, she was detained in July 2019.
According to a statement from the US Department of Justice, Thompson will be sentenced by US District Judge Robert S. Lasnik on September 15, 2022.
“Thompson used her hacking skills to steal the personal information of more than 100 million people, and hijacked computer servers to mine cryptocurrency,” said US Attorney Nick Brown.
“Far from being an ethical hacker trying to help companies with their computer security, she exploited mistakes to steal valuable data and sought to enrich herself,” Brown added.
In addition to five charges of unauthorised access to a protected computer, Thompson was also found guilty of destroying a protected computer. However, she was found not guilty of access device fraud and severe identity theft by the jury.
“She wanted data, she wanted money, and she wanted to brag,” Assistant US Attorney Andrew Friedman said.
More than 100 million US customers were compromised by the breach of Capital One accounts. The firm paid a $190 million settlement to resolve customer lawsuits and another $80 million in penalties.
— With IANS inputs.
