Texas Man Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison for Sending 2M Phishing Emails & Hacking U.S Superior Court

A Texas man sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for hacking into the Los Angeles Superior Court (LASC) computer system and sending 2 million malicious phishing emails to hundreds of victims to steal the credit card numbers.

Oriyomi Sadiq Aloba, 33 from Texas launched a phishing attack on LASC with the help of his co-conspirators and compromised the Court employee email account by sending phishing emails that pose as a legitimate file-hosting service Dropbox.

Phishing emails with the bogus DropBox link received by thousands of court employees and hundrends of employees responded to that email and gave their email credentials.

Later those compromised email addresses used to send nearly 2 million phishing emails along with different email formats that mimic the American Express, Wells Fargo, and other companies. 

Also, some of the phishing emails are ticked the victims to visit a webpage from a hyperlink that placed in emails and the site asked for victims banking login credentials, personal identifying information, and credit card information.

According to the DOJ report “The link for the fake American Express website used source code that designated Aloba’s email account as the delivery address for the information that the victims input into the fake website.”

Robert Charles Nicholson,28 New York, a co-defendant used the stolen credit card number for various purchases including the online moniker “Million$Menace” and pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Aloba was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud, one count of attempted wire fraud, one count of unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information, and four counts of aggravated identity theft

Aloba targetted the largest court system in the world and taking hundreds of computer down resulting in over $45,000 in losses to the LASC.

“After linking Aloba to the attack, investigators executed a search warrant at Aloba’s residence, which revealed a thumb drive in a toilet, a damaged iPhone in a bathroom sink, and a laptop computer,” DOJ said.

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