Ex-soldier gets 70 months for telecom hacks and extortion plot

A former Army soldier, Cameron John Wagenius, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for hacking telecom companies and threatening to leak stolen records unless paid. Prosecutors said he and co-conspirators sought at least $1 million and that he tried to sell information to a foreign intelligence service. He was also ordered to pay nearly $295,000 in restitution.

Wagenius, 22, used the handle “kiberphant0m.” Prosecutors said he was on active duty while taking part in the scheme. He and others allegedly gained credentials for at least ten organizations from April 2023 through December 2024, using a tool called SSH Brute and Telegram chats to trade access and plan intrusions.

The case overlapped with a 2024 Snowflake data-theft wave. Attackers reportedly used stolen logins against accounts without multifactor authentication. AT&T later said records of calls and texts for nearly all its cellular customers over a six-month span in 2022 were taken from its Snowflake account. Wagenius’ arrest drew attention after journalist Brian Krebs linked an account to posts claiming AT&T call logs tied to Trump and Harris.

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