The attacker got caught selling root accesses to supercomputers

The other day an interesting news appeared on the Web, showing that even the most advanced computing systems, with an excellent protection system, can be compromised as a result of the actions of smart hackers. Thus, the 24-year-old hacker was sentenced to 18 months in prison for selling access to supercomputers working at the Natural Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (Energy Department, USA). In principle, 18 months is nothing, because an attacker could get 15 years and a half million dollars in fines. But let's see what Andrew James Miller was selling.

So, according to the FBI, this man claimed that he had access to corporate computer systems of companies such as American Express, Adobe, and Google. The data was extracted by hacking computers of employees of organizations, with the subsequent installation of keyloggers. The attacker began to sell access to these systems, but, ironically, as a client he caught a fake buyer, an FBI agent. The latter bought several accesses for $ 1,000, after which he was offered something more interesting.
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Namely - Miller offered to buy root-access to two supercomputers of the US Department of Energy. For access, the cracker wanted 50 thousand US dollars. According to Miller, he got access as a result of the successful hacking of one of the Japanese university networks. It is worth noting that Miller worked under the nickname "Green", and was in the group Underground Intelligence Agency (UIA).

In addition to imprisonment, Miller will now have to pay compensation to all victims, and the amount of damage is still being specified.

Via theverge