The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed that Brazilian hacker Junior Barros De Oliveira has been indicted over extorting nearly $3.2 million worth of cryptocurrency from the Brazilian subsidiary of a New Jersey-based firm, which had information from almost 300,000 customers compromised as a result of at least three separate data breaches, The Hacker News reports.
After demanding such payment from the company's CEO, De Oliveira offered to provide assistance in addressing the security issue in the firm's systems in exchange for nearly $800,000 worth of Bitcoin, while detailing steps on how the payment could be given, according to the Justice Department.
De Oliveira could be jailed for up to five years and ordered to pay an up to $250,000 penalty for each of the four counts of extortionate threats, as well as face up to two years imprisonment and an up to $250,000 fine for each of the four counts of threatening communications.
