Connor Moucka, a 26-year-old from Canada, has admitted to hacking over 165 companies, stealing billions of data records, and extorting multiple organizations and individuals.
The U.S. Justice Department revealed the guilty plea in a statement on Wednesday.
Moucka was charged with breaching the cloud service provider, Snowflake, which facilitated access to numerous clients, including major names like AT&T, LendingTree, and Ticketmaster. He allegedly compromised data from more than 100 million AT&T users, which involved call logs, text records, banking details, as well as driver’s license numbers and Social Security information from various other breaches.
Throughout his criminal activities, Moucka and his associates reportedly earned over $2.5 million from ransom payments. Additionally, he made roughly $500,000 by selling stolen data on hacking platforms, including the infamous BreachForums. The Department of Justice estimated that the victims of Moucka’s cybercrimes incurred losses amounting to $9.5 million.
“Connor Moucka’s threats and re-extortion methods were deliberate and harmful, causing significant damage to his victims, which included both companies targeted for theft and the millions of everyday customers who relied on them,” stated W. Mike Herrington, an FBI special agent involved in the investigation.
Known online by the aliases Waifu and Judische, Moucka was apprehended in Canada at the end of 2024, shortly after the breaches at Snowflake became public knowledge.
At that time, Austin Larsen, a senior researcher at Google’s cybersecurity division Mandiant, noted that Moucka was considered “one of the most significant” hackers of 2024.
Moucka is set to receive his sentencing on October 27 and may face a lengthy prison term.
