A British hacker accused of orchestrating a trade scheme of $ 3.75 million insider has been charged in the US.
Robert Westbrook, 39, is said to have had unauthorized access to E -mail accounts from business leaders to take advantage of confidential financial information.
American authorities arrested Westbrook in London last week, and he is waiting for extradition to face several charges, including securities fraud and wire fraud.
Between January 2019 and May 2020, Westbrook would have hacked the Microsoft Office 365 accounts from managers at five American companies.
According to judicial documents, he used this access to collect non-public income information, which he then used to do transactions before the companies announced, which resulted in a considerable profit.
Authorities claim that Westbrook has repeatedly implemented automatic transit rules to send e-mails from the compromised accounts to his. He also took several steps to hide his identity, including the use of VPN services, anonymous e -mail accounts and cryptocurrency.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a civil complaint against Westbrook, while the Ministry of Justice (DOJ) has started a criminal proceedings.
“The SEC is in continuous efforts to protect markets and investors against the consequences of cyber fraud,” warned Jorge G. Tenreiro, acting head of the crypto assets and cyber unit of the SEC.
“As this case demonstrates, although Westbrook has taken several steps to hide its identity -including the use of anonymous e -mail accounts, VPN services and the use of Bitcoin -the advanced data operases of the committee, Crypto -Activa -Technology, even in cases of advanced, discovering, can even discover Fraude.”
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If convicted, Westbrook is confronted with serious penalties. Each effects and wire fraud costs bear a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, while every computer fraud count can add five years. He should also be obliged to pay millions of fines and can be permanently excluded from the trade effects.