A 28 years old Former IT security analyst of an Oxford-based company has been sentenced to three years for deceiving the company to extort money.
On 27 February 2018, the man impersonated a ransomware group that targeted the company at the time and exploited this opportunity for his benefit.
South East Regional Organised Crime shared the article that Ashley Liles, of Fleetwood, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, was sentenced for blackmail and unauthorized access to a computer with intent to commit other offenses at Crown Court.
During the primary attack, Ashley worked on the incident response team and traced that the attacker demanded ransom payment through email.
Taking advantage of this, he commenced a secondary attack on his company and accessed the emails of senior members over 300 times.
He modified the original email from the attacker by adding his payment details and sender email address and sent that email to his company to demand ransom.
However, the company refused to pay the ransom and discovered an unauthorized access attempt to the private emails.
In the event of an investigation, it was identified that the access had originated from Liles’s home address.
Detective Inspector Rob Bryant, from the SEROCU Cyber Crime Unit, said: “This has been a complex and challenging investigation, and I am incredibly grateful for all the officers and staff that were involved for their commitment and dedication over five years.
Officers from the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit’s (SEROCU’s) Cyber Crime Unit arrested Liles and seized his computer, laptop, phone, and USB stick.
Liles had wiped the data from his devices just a few days before his arrest. However, officers were able to provide the evidence by recovering his system.
Also, SEROCU encourages all the victims of cybercrime, irrespective of businesses or individuals, to report to Action Fraud.
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