A former Amazon Web Services engineer found guilty of hacking Capital One and several other companies, was sentenced to time served and five years of probation on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
Paige Thompson, 37, who went by the online name “Erratic,” was previously found guilty by a federal jury of wire fraud, five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer and damaging a protected computer, at a June trial. Her scheme to access the personal information of more than 100 million people from Capital One cost the bank $270 million.
Prosecutors were asking the court to impose a seven-year prison sentence. But U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik said time in prison would be difficult for Thompson because of her mental health and transgender status, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Tuesday.
“While we understand the mitigating factors, we are very disappointed with the court’s sentencing decision. This is not what justice looks like,” U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said in a statement. “Her cybercrimes created anxiety for millions of people who are justifiably concerned about their private information. This conduct deserves a more significant sanction.”
According to prosecutors with access to Thompson’s own words in texts and online chats, Thompson used a tool she built to scan AWS accounts to look for misconfigured accounts. She then used those misconfigured accounts to hack in and download the data of more than 30 entities, including Capital One. With some of her illegal access, she planted cryptocurrency mining software on new servers with the income from the mining going to her online wallet.
Thompson worked at Amazon as a systems engineer from 2015 to 2016.
Beyond Capitol One, she stole data from more than 30 more companies, schools, and other organizations, according to prosecutors. Capital One ended up paying $80 million in fines and $190 million to settle a class-action lawsuit related to the hack.
A Dec. 1 hearing will determine the amount Thompson must pay her victims.
