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Paige Thompson, a 33-year-old transgender woman, has been identified as the hacker behind the widespread Capital One data breach that compromised more than 100 million customers. Thompson, a former tech worker who served as an Amazon engineer, was arrested in Seattle on Monday, July 29, via CNN.com.
Thompson reportedly accessed 88,000 credit card accounts, 140,000 social security numbers, and other sensitive data.
Thompson has been charged with computer fraud and abuse, and faces a maximum sentence of a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison, according to BBC.
The data was stored on the Amazon Web Services cloud and was obtained between March and July. Capital One has taken responsibility for the breach and says it was an infrastructure fault, not Amazon’s.
“I sincerely apologize for the understandable worry this incident must be causing those affected and I am committed to making it right,” Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank said in a statement.
In an effort to make up for the data breach, Capital One is offering a free service to anyone impacted by the hack.
From the report:
Capital One said it will notify people affected by the breach and will make free credit monitoring and identity protection available. The company expects to incur between $100 million and $150 million in costs related to the hack, including customer notifications, credit monitoring, tech costs and legal support due to the hack.
The FBI was reportedly tipped off about the hack after Thompson took to social media to brag about her success. She ran a group called Seattle Warez Kiddies for “anybody with an appreciation for distributed systems, programming, hacking, cracking.”
In addition, Thompson reportedly attempted to sell the data to anyone who may have been interested in obtaining it.
Thompson will remain behind bars in federal custody leading up to a scheduled court appearance on Thursday, August 1.
