Verkada Attacker Charged With Wire Fraud, Conspiracy in US

Verkada Attacker Charged With Wire Fraud, Conspiracy in US
Swiss national Till Kottmann and co-conspirators are accused of breaking into dozens of US companies and government entities.

The US government has charged Swiss national Till Kottmann for computer intrusion and identity and data theft in intrusions against several private organizations and government entities.


Twenty-one-year-old Kottmann, who also goes by Tillie and uses they/them pronouns, was most recently connected to the breach of US camera security startup Verkada. Late last week, Swiss authorities raided Kottmann's apartment and seized electronic devices after the alleged attacker reportedly shared video and images related to the incident. The attackers responsible were able to access a super admin account that let them access video from nearly 150,000 cameras. 


This isn't the only attack Kottmann has been involved in. The indictment unsealed today by the Justice Department reveals Kottmann and co-conspirators have broken into dozens of companies and government entities, and shared private victim data from more than 100 online targets.


Since 2019, Kottmann has primarily targeted online code repositories belonging to private- and public-sector organizations. They cloned source code, files, and other confidential and proprietary data, some of which included hard-coded administrative credentials, access keys, and other means to expand their system or network access. 


Kottmann used this access to further infiltrate target entities and copy additional files, records, and information, the indictment alleges. They then leaked victim data through several means, one of which was a website (git.rip) seized by the FBI. Kottmann and conspirators communicated with reporters over social media to recruit other participants and further grow their scheme. 


Their website, in operation since 2019, listed data for more than 100 organizations including Intel, Microsoft, Adobe, Lenovo, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Pepsi, Toyota, Git ..

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