The Department of Justice (DOJ) has linked the arrest of a serving U.S. Army soldier, Cameron John Wagenius, to a massive hack of AT&T and Verizon last year. Wagenius was arrested in December and charged with unlawfully transferring confidential phone records.
The hack, which affected over 160 companies, resulted in the theft of millions of phone records from telecom giants AT&T and Verizon, as well as major corporations such as LendingTree, Santander Bank, and Ticketmaster. The hackers exploited weak cybersecurity measures, including the lack of multi-factor authentication, to gain access to customer and corporate data using stolen passwords infected with malware.
The latest development adds to the growing list of cybersecurity issues that remain a concern, as individuals and U.S. adversaries increase their hacking attempts. The incident marks the first time prosecutors have publicly tied Wagenius to the Snowflake data breaches, an attack that compromised sensitive information from over 160 companies.
Court filings revealed that the stolen records included nearly all customer call data from AT&T and a significant number of Verizon’s customer logs. Wagenius is also accused of being connected to two alleged hackers, Connor Moucka and John Binns, who were charged with breaching cloud-computing platform Snowflake, resulting in the theft of sensitive data from numerous corporate clients.
The hack was one of the most wide-reaching attacks of 2024, and the DOJ’s linking of Wagenius to the breach is a significant development in the ongoing investigation. The incident highlights the importance of robust cybersecurity measures to prevent such attacks and the need for continued vigilance in the face of evolving cyber threats.