Matthew Lane, 19, has admitted to committing crimes related to extorting two companies for ransom by hacking into their computer systems. This University student from Sterling pleaded guilty to cyber extortion conspiracy, cyber extortion, unauthorized access to protected computers, and aggravated identity theft. The U.S. Attorney’s Office released a statement on Tuesday detailing Lane’s illegal activities.
In April and May 2024, Lane collaborated with others to demand $200,000 in Bitcoin from a telecommunications company by threatening to expose previously stolen data. Despite the company’s initial skepticism, Lane persisted in his demands through anonymous emails. However, the company refused to meet his ransom demands, resulting in no payment being made. In September of the same year, Lane targeted a software and cloud storage company that caters to school systems. He managed to access the company’s network using an employee’s login credentials and proceeded to transfer sensitive information to his own server leased from a Ukrainian cloud storage provider.
In December, the software company received a ransom demand from Lane, threatening to release personal information of over 60 million students and 10 million teachers worldwide if they did not pay 30 Bitcoin (equivalent to around $2.85 million). As of now, a plea hearing has not been scheduled. U.S. Attorney Leah Foley emphasized the severity of cyber extortion, highlighting the detrimental impact it has on businesses and their customers’ data security.
