Michigan Man Admits Selling UPMC Employee Data

A hacker from Michigan has admitted to stealing the sensitive knowledge of more than 65,000 University of Pittsburgh Health care Center (UPMC) workforce and selling it online.

Federal Crisis Administration Agency (FEMA) IT specialist Justin Sean Johnson, known on the dark web by the handles TheDearthStar, Dearthy Star, TDS, and DS, hacked into UPMC’s human assets databases in January 2014. Six many years afterwards, the 30-year-aged resident of Detroit was indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh and subsequently arrested on fees of conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

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Among the info swiped and sold by Johnson was W-2 details and Personally Identifiable Info (PII) that included Social Security numbers, addresses, names and income facts. Conspirators who bought the details from Johnson by means of forums submitted hundreds of bogus type 1040 tax returns in 2014 applying UPMC worker PII. 

Hundreds of countless numbers of bucks of false tax refunds claimed in these untrue 1040 filings have been then converted into gift playing cards for on-line marketplace Amazon.com. Conspirators used the gift cards to order products and solutions that were later shipped to Venezuela. 

The valuable felony plan resulted in the loss of about $1.7m in bogus tax return refunds. 

UPMC workforce had been not the only victims of Johnson’s proclivity for knowledge theft. From 2014 by means of 2017 he also stole and bought just about 90,000 additional sets of PII to consumers on dark web message boards, which could be employed to dedicate id theft and lender fraud.

On Could 20, Johnson pleaded guilty to counts 1 and 39 of a 43-depend indictment before Chief United States District Judge Mark R. Hornak. Johnson will remain in detention while a date is established for his sentencing.

“However, by way of no fault of their personal, the persons whose identities are stolen in scenarios like this are generally victimized consistently,” said Tom Fattorusso, the distinctive agent in demand of IRS–Criminal Investigation at the time of Johnson’s arrest.

“Originally, they have to deal with the anxiety of being aware of their personalized info was stolen. Criminals then use the stolen data to file false tax returns, or they market it to other criminals who use it to file fake returns. This will cause a hardship for the harmless victims when they attempt to file their have tax returns. Victims are then left to offer with credit rating issues brought on by the unscrupulous steps of the criminals.”