Criminal Activity: Yahoo hacker faces jail for intimate photos

This information could include names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, and encrypted passwords.

Yahoo noted that during the attack, cookies were faked – this is text information that is transmitted from the server to the browser and stored on the user’s computer.
This hacker attack caused serious damage to the company’s reputation, which is why Verizon Corporation, which had planned to acquire Yahoo three years ago, decided to postpone the purchase. As a result, the deal was closed in the summer of June 2017 – Yahoo had to pay $ 4.48 billion for the business. In addition, the then head of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, had to leave his post.
Speaking at a Senate hearing in November 2017, during which Mayer apologized for an unprecedented data leak, she blamed some “Russian hackers” for breaking.

Now in recent days, A former Yahoo engineer took advantage of his official position to hack into user accounts of the company and look for intimate photos in them. It is reported that 6 thousand people became victims of this criminal scheme. Now the 34-year-old attacker faces a prison sentence, as well as an impressive fine.

Reyes Daniel Ruiz, previously a Yahoo engineer, pleaded guilty to an unlawful intrusion into computer networks. As follows from a press release from the US Department of Justice, a 34-year-old ex-search engine employee took advantage of his position and hacked 6,000 Yahoo user accounts.

Ruiz was looking for personal information about users, and in particular, he was interested in photographs and videos of pornographic content.

According to the accused, he gained access to user passwords and Yahoo’s internal network to compromise thousands of accounts. Most of all he was interested in young girls – among the hacked victims of Ruiz are his friends and work colleagues. He made copies of photos and videos that he liked and kept them at home. In addition, with the help of access to his profile on Yahoo, he was able to compromise the user accounts of iCloud, Facebook, Gmail, DropBox and other online platforms to look for new intimate images there.
After the former employer of Ruiz recorded suspicious activity, the attacker destroyed the computer and hard drive on which he stored the collected data. Reyes Daniel Ruiz is charged with one episode of invading computer networks and intercepting private messages. Now he faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $ 250 thousand.

Russian agents managed to infiltrate our systems and steal the data of our users, ”Mayer said.

In the same month, it became known that a Canadian hacker of Kazakh origin pleaded guilty to the case of hacking Yahoo accounts. Karim Baratov, 23, also known as Kai, Karim Taloverov and Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov, was accused of computer fraud and eight cases of identity theft under aggravating circumstances. He was threatened with up to 20 years in prison, but in the end, he received only five years in prison. Also, he is obliged to pay a fine of up to $ 2.2 million, as well as compensation to all victims. In addition to Baratov, in March 2017. The U.S. Department of Justice brought charges against three Russians – hacker Alexei Belan. As well as two FSB officers Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sechin. who previously worked at the Department’s Information Security Center. It is known that Baratov is the only one who was detained in this case. Continue