A Los Angeles County man has granted the establishment of an online hacking scheme to access sensitive information from unsuspecting users. He then downloaded and leaked sensitive data from Disney.
Ryan Mitchell Kramer, 25, of Santa Clarita, pleaded guilty to one count of accessing and obtaining information, and agreed to one count threatening to damage a protected computer.
In 2024, Kramer uploaded malicious computer programs to multiple websites, including the online coding repository Github.
It was labelled as a program that created AI-generated art, but in reality it was set up to have access to the computer of the person who downloaded it.
One of his victims, DOJ, was an employee of the Walt Disney Company in Burbank.
Kramer was able to access victim computers and their stored login credentials for personal and professional accounts, including private slack channels used by entertainment conglomerate employees.
The illustration in this photo is also known as the Walt Disney Company, a multinational American mass media and entertainment, or Disney logo. It will be displayed on your smartphone screen. (Getty Images) The Slack Technologies Inc. program with smartphone laptop computers and company logos located on Saturday, May 29, 2021 at Dobbs Ferry, New York, USA. (Getty Images)
In May 2024, Kramer downloaded approximately 1.1 terabytes of sensitive data from the Disney Slack Channel.
The DOJ says he contacted the victim through email and another online messaging platform, Discord, claiming he was a member of a fake Russian hacking group called “Nullbulge.”
Using this persona, Kramer threatened to leak caches of victims’ personal information and stolen Disney Slack data. DOJ did not provide details regarding his initial request to prevent leaks.
The message was not answered, and at that point Kramer released the stolen files and the victim’s personal, financial and medical information.
Kramer was eventually arrested after an investigation by the FBI.
As part of his judicial agreement, he also allowed to hack two other victims using the same means.
Kramer agreed to plead guilty to two felony charges related to the hacking scheme.
He is expected to appear in the first courthouse “in the coming weeks” in US District Court in downtown Los Angeles, DOJ said.
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