tech
Fired hacker twins forget to end Teams recording, capture own crimes
Perhaps you remember Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, the 34-year-old twin brothers we profiled earlier this week. Although they had the tech chops to commit years of petty crimes (like stealing airline miles), what landed them in truly serious trouble was deleting 96 US government databases in the hour after both were fired last year by the same federal IT contractor, Opexus. (Opexus had just found out that both brothers had previously been in prison for cyberfraud.)
TL;DR
- Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter were fired by their IT contractor employer, Opexus, after the company discovered their prior cyberfraud convictions.
- Following their firing, the brothers deleted 96 US government databases.
- The government obtained a verbatim transcript of the brothers' incriminating conversations because they accidentally left a Microsoft Teams meeting recording active after their termination.
- The recording captured their discussions about deleting databases, accessing customer information, and their attempts to create plausible deniability.
- Both brothers are now in federal prison, with Sohaib found guilty at trial and Muneeb having pleaded guilty and attempting to withdraw his plea.