Prison Term Sought for Private Eye Who Hacked Email

Tony Ortega, a journalist, suspects his email was hacked because he writes about Scientology.CreditSonia Recchia/Getty Images for Sundance

In the end, the amount of money a New York private investigator made from people who paid him to illegally pilfer the emails of possibly dozens of people he was investigating was small — just $5,000.

But the privacy violation was so great that federal prosecutors are asking a judge on Friday to sentence the investigator, Eric Saldarriaga, 41, to serve as much as six months in prison to send a stern message about the wrongness of illegal hacking.

At least one of the people who had their email accounts hacked by Mr. Saldarriaga was a journalist who has written articles about the Church of Scientology and suspects that the investigator was hired to look into his work, according to a letter from the victim that prosecutors filed with the court on Thursday.

Prosecutors are seeking prison time for Mr. Saldarriaga, who lives in Queens, even though the court’s own probation department has recommended six months of home detention plus three years of supervised probation. The request for the stiffer sentence shows how serious the authorities are taking the hacking of emails and social media accounts.

“Unlike defendants in a gun or drug case, who often act without reflection, there is reason to believe that individuals who engage in hacking and other forms of cybercrime can be deterred by a substantial threat of penalties,” said Daniel S. Noble, a prosecutor working for Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for Manhattan, in a pre-sentencing memorandum submitted this week.

Mr. Saldarriaga, who pleaded guilty on March 6 to one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, paid an unidentified overseas firm to secure the login credentials and passwords for the email accounts he wanted access to without permission. Mr. Saldarriaga’s use of a so-called hacker-for-hire firm surfaced during a broad investigation into the illicit activity conducted by federal authorities in Los Angeles several years ago.

When federal authorities in New York approached Mr. Saldarriaga in March 2014 about his activities, they found him to be cooperative and willing to acknowledge that he had taken money from clients to break into private email accounts, according to a court filing. But to date, no one else has been charged in the matter.

Law enforcement officials are increasingly concerned about hackers breaking into email accounts at law firms, large companies and investor-relations firms to gather information about business strategies and potential corporate deals.

In December, FireEye, a computer security consulting firm, released a report about a sophisticated hacking group it called Fin4 that was taking aim at corporate email accounts at large pharmaceutical companies and financial services firms to get information about potential merger negotiations.

Before the release of the report, FireEye officials gave a private briefing toSecurities and Exchange Commission officials and others in law enforcement, alerting them that the information obtained by the hackers might be used by some to make potentially profitable trades, said a person briefed on that meeting but not authorized to speak publicly.

View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1KfqLYC

from hacker samurai http://ift.tt/1dkIzEC
via IFTTT