Categories: Cyber Security News

Former Yahoo Employee Pleads Guilty for Hacking into 6,000 Yahoo accounts in Search for Private Images

Former Yahoo employee pleads guilty for hacking into 6,000 Yahoo users accounts in search of personal records such as private images and videos of account holders.

Reyes Daniel Ruiz admitted in federal court in San Jose for hacking Yahoo accounts, he cracked user passwords and accessed Yahoo internal systems to compromise the Yahoo accounts.

He targeted the email accounts of a young woman, including his personal friends and work colleagues. Ruiz copies the images found in the personal account without their permission and stored the data at this home,” reads plea agreement.

By having access to the Yahoo accounts he managed to get access to the users iCloud, Facebook, Gmail, DropBox and other online accounts in search of private images and videos.

He did this by requesting the password reset on those sites and the password reset emails received on the compromised Yahoo accounts. By having two-factor authentication these types of attacks can be avoided.

Once Ruiz’s employer Yahoo detected the suspicious activity, he admitted that he destroyed the computer that the data were stored.

The 34-year-old Ruiz was charged one count of Computer Intrusion and one count of Interception of a Wire Communication. He may get five years imprisonment and a restitution fine of $250,000.

Now he is released following the $200,000 bond and his plea was scheduled for February 3, 2020, in front of Honorable Edward J. Davila, U.S. District Court Judge, in San Jose.

It is important to protect the data against insider threats, employes acting maliciously toward the company is risky, the organization should put the right precautions in place.

Based on his Linkedin profile the former Yahoo employee Reyes Daniel Ruiz worked at Okta, Inc between October 2018 to July 2019. Ruiz was charged in April, after that the company investigated and fired him.

You can follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook for daily Cybersecurity and hacking news updates

Gurubaran

Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.

Recent Posts

Hackers Use ConnectWise SkyKick Credentials to Access Microsoft 365, Halting Cloud Backups

Attackers abused compromised ConnectWise Cloud Backup credentials to access Microsoft 365 customer environments, prompting ConnectWise…

1 day ago

Anthropic’s Claude AI Uncovers Origins of NSA-Provided Cryptographic Keys After 25 Years

Anthropic says an internal Claude research model reconstructed how the National Security Agency generated seeds…

1 day ago

Critical WordPress Flaws Allow Attackers to Execute Remote Code Without Authentication

Two WordPress Core vulnerabilities can be chained to execute remote code without authentication, according to…

1 day ago

OpenBSD Kernel Flaw Dating Back 37 Years Enables Local Privilege Escalation to Root

A newly disclosed OpenBSD kernel exploitation chain combines a shared memory accounting flaw with a…

1 day ago

GhostAction Hackers Hide Credential-Stealing Malware in Fake Font Files Across 94 GitHub Repositories

GhostAction attackers have expanded their GitHub credential theft campaign with a second stage that disguises…

1 day ago

SideCopy Hackers Target Indian Organizations With ReverseRAT Malware to Steal Data

Indian authorities have warned that SideCopy hackers are targeting Indian organizations, including academic institutions, with…

2 days ago