2023年2月3日

周四，科技公司Ubiquiti的一名前雇員在曼哈頓一家聯邦法庭上認罪，他被控對其雇主實施了一次大膽的內部攻擊，在要求贖金之前獲取了大量機密數據。37歲的尼古拉斯·夏普(Nickolas Sharp)是這家總部位於紐約、專攻無線通信的公司的高級軟件工程師。在他的職位上，他負責雲基礎設施的安全以及軟件開發。根據聯邦起訴書，夏普從2020年底開始濫用他的行政訪問權限，並從該公司的亞馬遜網絡服務和GitHub服務器下載了千兆字節的機密數據。美國檢察官達米安·威廉姆斯周四在一份宣布認罪的聲明中說:“尼古拉斯·夏普的公司委托他提供機密信息，他利用這些信息勒索贖金。”夏普的計劃也有一個虛假信息的角度。正如威廉姆斯所指出的，“雪上加霜的是，當夏普沒有收到贖金要求時，他通過發布關於該公司的虛假新聞進行報複。”夏普承認了一項向受保護電腦傳輸程序並故意造成損害的指控;一項電信欺詐罪名;以及一項向聯邦調查局作虛假陳述的指控。 Together, the charges carry a maximum sentence of 35 years, which will be decided by a judge in May. After the company discovered the breach, Sharp was assigned to the team working to investigate and remediate the incident. It was at this point that he posed as an anonymous hacker and sent a ransom note, demanding about $1.9 million in bitcoin in exchange for the stolen files and information about a purported insecure “backdoor” in the system. Three minutes before the deadline to pay the ransom, the “hacker” sent a message via Keybase to an Ubiquiti employee: “No BTC. No talk. We done here.” Included was a link to a public folder containing leaked data. Ultimately, Sharp’s IP address led investigators to his door in Portland, Oregon. He had used the VPN provider Surfshark to hide his tracks, but was exposed one night when there was an Internet outage. As it came back on, the IP address linked to his house was logged as he ran commands to clone GitHub repositories. In March 2021, FBI investigators searched Sharp’s home. According to the indictment , a few days later he began speaking to the media as an anonymous whistleblower, alleging that the data breach at the company was much worse than had been disclosed and that it was handled poorly. Following the coverage, Ubiquiti’s stock plummeted, losing $4 billion in market capitalization over a two-day span. The journalist Brian Krebs, who quoted Sharp anonymously on his site Krebs on Security, was ultimately sued by Ubiquiti for his coverage. Sharp was arrested in December 2021. Tags