Overview
- The sentencing on Friday delivered a 70-month federal prison term and about $294,978 in restitution for Cameron John Wagenius for hacking, extortion and identity theft.
- Federal filings say Wagenius helped run a years‑long campaign from April 2023 to December 2024 that used exposed credentials and a tool called SSH Brute to break into Snowflake customer environments and telecom systems.
- Investigators say the group stole massive call-detail records, including six months of AT&T customer phone and text metadata, then tried to extort companies for more than $1 million and to sell data to foreign actors.
- Co‑conspirators include Conor/Connor Moucka, who has pleaded guilty, and John Erin Binns, who remains outside U.S. custody; prosecutors say the network took in over $2.5 million in combined extortion payments.
- The case prompted a multi‑agency probe, led to Snowflake enforcing multi‑factor authentication, raised prison computer‑use concerns after Wagenius sought AI help on vulnerabilities while detained, and underlines growing insider and cloud security risks.