A federal grand jury recently indicted Paige A. Thompson last Wednesday, August 28, 2019. Thompson’s charges remain grounded on her involvement with the Capital One data breach which affected millions of people.
Former software engineer Thompson faces two counts of charges, which could put her behind bars for up to 25 years. The charges relate to her unauthorized intrusion into stored data of more than 30 companies. Brian T. Moran, a United States Attorney, announced the indictment.
According to a report published by USA Today, Thompson faces charges of relating to one of the world’s biggest breaches. Following her capture, last July 29, 2019, the United States Magistrate Judge Peterson ordered Paige’s custody pending trial. The trial will be heard in the United States District Court in Seattle on September 5, 2019.
Paige remained in custody since the first of August 2019. USA Today states Peterson called the order “because [she’s] a flight risk and poses a physical danger to herself and others.”
Tech Crunch states the Capital One data breach affected more than 100 million consumers in the country. Meanwhile, around 6 million customers in Canada were affected.
Thompson mined sensitive information and other personal data from consumers using a particular type of software. The software allegedly allowed her to access this information by misconfiguring the firewall powered by Amazon Web Services.
Besides Capital One, the suspect also mined data coming from 30 other companies and entities. However, the indictment did not name the 30 organizations affected by the breach.
Despite refusing to name the 30 companies, the indicted revealed three victims. Forbes reports these three entities as the Michigan State University, Ohio Department of Transportation, and Vodafone. Information on these institutions have been posted on a Slack chat which Thompson spoke of, says Forbes.
The compromised information includes names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and income and employment details. Around 80,000 Credit and bank account information also became vulnerable, together with 140,000 Social Security numbers. Paige also obtained credit scores, balances, and credit limit reveals USA Today.
Apart from these, Thompson also resulted in mining cryptocurrency, otherwise known as cryptojacking.
The Department of Justice U.S. Attorney’s Office from the Western District of Washington released the statement last August 28, 2019. Prosecutors presiding over the case are Assistant United States attorneys Andrew Friedman and Steven Masada. Alongside these, the Federal Bureau of Investigations will also conduct their own research on this matter.
