A Texas man, Oriyomi Sadiq Aloba (33), was found guilty of hacking into the Los Angeles Superior Court ( LASC ) computer system and misusing it to send out approximately 2 million phishing emails. The phishing campaign was aimed at obtaining victims' credit card numbers.
The man was sentenced for hacking by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner to 145 months in federal prison, and the judge also ordered him to pay $47,479 in restitution.
In July 2017, Aloba and his associates compromised the email account of a court employee and used it to send phishing emails to associates. The malicious messages included a link to a phishing website created to solicit LASC users for their email addresses and passwords.
“Thousands of court employees received the Dropbox email and hundreds revealed their email credentials to the attacker. The compromised email accounts were then used to send the approximately 2 million phishing emails,” the judge continues.
Aloba and her co-conspirators also sent phishing emails pretending to be from American Express, Wells Fargo, and other companies. In this case, the links included in the phishing emails pointed to websites that asked for victims’ banking credentials, personal information, and credit card information.
The information provided by victims through the fake American Express is sent to an email account under the Texan's control.
Investigators executed a search warrant at Aloba's residence and seized a drive hidden in the toilet, a damaged iPhone in a bathroom sink, and a laptop with a shattered screen .
Co-defendant Robert Charles Nicholson (28), of New York, pleaded guilty in June to a number of offenses and will be sentenced on November 4.
The Justice Department also added that three other defendants allegedly hired by Aloba to create the “phishing tools” remain at large outside the United States.
