Nickolas Sharp, a 37-year-old former software engineer from Portland, Oregon, who worked at Ubiquiti Networks, has admitted to stealing large amounts of data from the company, attempting to extort millions of dollars, and damaging the company's reputation in the media. Sharp had access to Ubiquiti's AWS servers and GitHub repositories, and used a SurfShark VPN account to hide his IP address while downloading the data. However, a temporary outage caused his real IP address to be logged. He then posed as an anonymous hacker, demanding $2 million for the data's safe return. When Ubiquiti refused to pay, Sharp published some of the stolen files online. After being questioned by the FBI, Sharp contacted technology journalists pretending to be a whistleblower within the company, resulting in stories of security issues at Ubiquiti that caused the company's share price to drop by 20%. Sharp has now pled guilty to charges of wire fraud, making false statements to the FBI, and transmitting a program to a protected computer that intentionally caused damage. He is facing a maximum of 35 years in prison, and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 10, 2023.
This Cyber News was published on www.bitdefender.com. Publication date: Mon, 06 Feb 2023 18:31:02 +0000