A former US Navy IT supervisor has been sentenced to 5 years and 5 months in jail after illegally hacking a database containing personally identifiable info (PII) and promoting it on the darkish net.

32-year-old Marquis Cooper, of Selma, California, was a chief petty officer within the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet when he opened an account in August 2018 with an organization that maintains a PII database for hundreds of thousands of individuals.

The corporate, which has not been named by the US Division of Justice in its press launch about Cooper’s sentencing, restricts entry to its database to these organisations and authorities businesses which have demonstrated a authentic lawful requirement.

Hooper, nevertheless, opened an account by falsely claiming the Navy required him to carry out background checks on people.

Each report ran on the database was headed with the phrases “FOR GOVERNMENT PURPOSES ONLY.”

However this did not cease Hooper and his spouse and co-defendant Natasha Chalk from utilizing the account to steal the private info of over 9000 people after which promoting it to fraudsters on the darkish net.

Within the two and a half months that the scheme operated, Hooper and Chalk are mentioned to have made US $160,000 in Bitcoin by way of their prison endeavours.

In the meantime, fraudsters had been utilizing the leaked info to commit crimes comparable to creating faux driving licenses, and try and withdraw cash from sufferer’s financial institution accounts.

Suspected of fraud, Hooper’s database account was closed in December 2018. Nonetheless, in keeping with legislation enforcement Hooper and Chalk then tried to regain entry to the information by providing to pay an unindicted co-conspirator $2,500 per 30 days to open a brand new account underneath false pretences, and preserve their entry.

To help within the new software for entry to the delicate knowledge, Hooper supplied his co-conspirator with a faux contract that recognized an extra id theft sufferer as a Navy provide officer authorizing the transaction. When the corporate requested for additional verification, Hooper provided a faux driver’s license for the sufferer and a faux letter from a commanding officer approving the entry.

Fortuitously, the corporate sustaining the database determined to not open the account, and numerous harmless folks’s non-public info was shielded from falling into the palms of fraudsters.

Marquis Hooper was sentenced to 5 years and 5 months in jail earlier this week. His spouse Natasha Chalk, 39, is scheduled to be sentenced on November 20, 2023.

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