Robert Purbeck, a 45-year-old man from Idaho, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for hacking at the very least 19 organizations in america, stealing the non-public knowledge of greater than 132,000 folks, and a number of extortion makes an attempt.
As showcased in the indictment, prosecutors linked a number of knowledge theft and blackmail incidents to Purbeck (additionally recognized on-line as “Lifelock” and “Studmaster”).
In 2017, he purchased community entry to a pc server of a medical clinic in Georgia on a darknet market. He then leveraged this entry to steal the personally identifiable data (PII) of 43,000 people, together with their names, addresses, and social safety numbers.
In February 2018, Purbeck purchased entry to a Georgia-based police division server, which enabled him to steal experiences, paperwork, and PII of 14,000 folks after hacking into the Metropolis of Newnan’s programs.
Months later, in July 2018, the person demanded a ransom from a Florida orthodontist for not leaking his sufferers’ stolen recordsdata. Purbeck continued harassing him and his sufferers for greater than 10 days with many emails and textual content messages, threatening to promote their private and well being knowledge except the ransom was paid.
“Purbeck also identified the names and social security numbers of [his] minor children and threatened to disclose and sell their personal information as well,” the indictment additional reveals.
Whereas raiding his house in August 2019, the FBI discovered the info of greater than 132,000 folks on seized units, possible stolen in a number of knowledge breaches through the years.
“On Aug. 21, 2019, the FBI executed a federal search warrant at Purbeck’s home in Meridian,” the U.S. Justice Division mentioned in a Wednesday press launch.
“During the search, the FBI seized multiple computers and electronic devices, which contained personal information of over 132,000 individuals, obtained through Purbeck’s numerous data breaches.”
In March, the person pleaded responsible to 2 counts of deliberately accessing and acquiring data from a protected pc with out authorization and was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Along with the primary sentence, Purbeck will serve three years of supervised launch and pay his victims over $1,048,700 in restitution.
