U.S. Military Soldier Arrested in AT&T, Verizon Extortions – Krebs on Safety

Federal authorities have arrested and indicted a 20-year-old U.S. Military soldier on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m, a cybercriminal who has been promoting and leaking delicate buyer name data stolen earlier this yr from AT&T and Verizon. As first reported by KrebsOnSecurity final month, the accused is a communications specialist who was lately stationed in South Korea.

Cameron John Wagenius was arrested close to the Military base in Fort Hood, Texas on Dec. 20, after being indicted on two prison counts of illegal switch of confidential telephone data.

The sparse, two-page indictment (PDF) doesn’t reference particular victims or hacking exercise, nor does it embody any private particulars in regards to the accused. However a dialog with Wagenius’ mom — Minnesota native Alicia Roen — stuffed within the gaps.

Roen stated that previous to her son’s arrest he’d acknowledged being related to Connor Riley Moucka, a.ok.a. “Judische,” a prolific cybercriminal from Canada who was arrested in late October for stealing knowledge from and extorting dozens of firms that saved knowledge on the cloud service Snowflake.

In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Judische stated he had no real interest in promoting the info he’d stolen from Snowflake prospects and telecom suppliers, and that he most popular to outsource that to Kiberphant0m and others. In the meantime, Kiberphant0m claimed in posts on Telegram that he was accountable for hacking into at the least 15 telecommunications corporations, together with AT&T and Verizon.

On November 26, KrebsOnSecurity revealed a narrative that adopted a path of clues left behind by Kiberphantom indicating he was a U.S. Military soldier stationed in South Korea.

Ms. Roen stated Cameron labored on radio indicators and community communications at an Military base in South Korea for the previous two years, returning to america periodically. She stated Cameron was all the time good with computer systems, however that she had no concept he might need been concerned in prison hacking.

“I by no means was conscious he was into hacking,” Roen stated. “It was positively a shock to me after we discovered these things out.”

Ms. Roen stated Cameron joined the Military as quickly as he was of age, following in his older brother’s footsteps.

“He and his brother once they have been like 6 and seven years outdated would ask for MREs from different nations,” she recalled, referring to military-issued “meals able to eat” meals rations. “They each all the time needed to be within the Military. I’m undecided the place issues went flawed.”

Instantly after information broke of Moucka’s arrest, Kiberphant0m posted on the hacker neighborhood BreachForums what they claimed have been the AT&T name logs for President-elect Donald J. Trump and for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Within the occasion you don’t attain out to us @ATNT all presidential authorities name logs can be leaked,” Kiberphant0m threatened, signing their put up with a number of “#FREEWAIFU” tags. “You don’t assume we don’t have plans within the occasion of an arrest? Assume once more.”

Kiberphant0m posting what he claimed was a “knowledge schema” stolen from the NSA by way of AT&T.

On that very same day, Kiberphant0m posted what they claimed was the “knowledge schema” from the U.S. Nationwide Safety Company.

On Nov. 5, Kiberphant0m supplied name logs stolen from Verizon’s push-to-talk (PTT) prospects — primarily U.S. authorities companies and emergency first responders. On Nov. 9, Kiberphant0m posted a gross sales thread on BreachForums providing a “SIM-swapping” service concentrating on Verizon PTT prospects. In a SIM-swap, fraudsters use credentials which might be phished or stolen from cell phone firm workers to divert a goal’s telephone calls and textual content messages to a tool they management.

The profile picture on Wagenius’ Fb web page was deleted inside hours of my Nov. 26 story figuring out Kiberphant0m as a possible U.S. Military soldier. Nonetheless, a lot of his authentic profile pictures stay, together with a number of that present Wagenius in uniform whereas holding numerous Military-issued weapons.

A number of profile pictures seen on the Fb web page of Cameron Wagenius.

November’s story on Kiberphant0m cited his personal Telegram messages saying he maintained a big botnet that was used for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults to knock web sites, customers and networks offline. In 2023, Kiberphant0m offered distant entry credentials for a serious U.S. protection contractor.

Allison Nixon, chief analysis officer on the New York-based cybersecurity agency Unit 221B, helped observe down Kiberphant0m’s actual life id. Nixon was amongst a number of safety researchers who confronted harassment and particular threats of violence from Judische and his associates.

“Anonymously extorting the President and VP as a member of the army is a nasty concept, however it’s a fair worse concept to harass individuals who focus on de-anonymizing cybercriminals,” Nixon informed KrebsOnSecurity. She stated the investigation into Kiberphant0m reveals that regulation enforcement is getting higher and sooner at going after cybercriminals — particularly those that are literally dwelling in america.

“Between after we, and an nameless colleague, discovered his opsec mistake on November tenth to his final Telegram exercise on December 6, regulation enforcement set the velocity file for the quickest turnaround time for an American federal cyber case that I’ve witnessed in my profession,” she stated.

Nixon requested to share a message for all the opposite Kiberphant0ms on the market who assume they’ll’t be discovered and arrested.

“I do know that younger individuals concerned in cybercrime will learn these articles,” Nixon stated. “It is advisable cease doing silly shit and get a lawyer. Regulation enforcement needs to place all of you in jail for a very long time.”

The indictment in opposition to Wagenius was filed in Texas, however the case has been transferred to the U.S. District Courtroom for the Western District of Washington in Seattle.