Snowflake hacker pleads guilty to stealing data from more than 165 companies

The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a major statement on a large-scale cybercrime case. According to the statement, 26-year-old Canadian national Connor Moucka admitted illegally accessing the networks of more than 165 companies, stealing billions of records, and extorting money from victims. These cyberattacks exposed serious weaknesses in modern cloud technology security and corporate data protection systems. TechCrunch.com reports .

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Connor Moucka and his accomplices breached the security systems of cloud provider Snowflake. As a result, hackers obtained the customer databases of dozens of major companies, including AT&T, LendingTree, and Ticketmaster. In particular, investigators found that call and SMS records belonging to more than 100 million AT&T customers had been stolen.

Scale and financial impact of the cyberattacks

The criminals threatened to distribute data obtained from various sources, including bank details, driver’s licenses, and personal identification numbers. According to ixbt.com, Connor Moucka and his accomplices extorted more than $2.5 million in ransom payments over several years. They also earned an additional half a million dollars by selling the stolen databases on prominent hacking forums such as BreachForums.

According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates, the total financial damage caused to victims by these cyberattacks amounts to $9.5 million. FBI Special Agent W. Mike Herrington called the actions “calculated and predatory threats” and emphasized that millions of ordinary citizens were affected.

Experts’ assessment and the upcoming trial

The hacker, known online by the aliases Waifu and Judische, was arrested in Canada at the end of 2024, several months after the attacks on Snowflake. Austin Larsen, a senior researcher at the Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant, had described Moucka at the time as one of the “most dangerous and consequential” hackers of 2024.

The investigation has now concluded, and the case has entered the pretrial stage. Connor Moucka is scheduled to be sentenced on October 27 of this year and could face decades in prison. The case once again highlights the need to further strengthen cloud service security in the field of cybersecurity.