Londoner earned a reported $3 million from the efforts.
A British man has been charged with a executing hack-to-trade scheme which saw him generate millions of dollars in profits.
According to a statement from the US Justice Department, Robert Westbrook from London was arrested in the United Kingdom this week with a view towards extradition to the United States so that he can face an indictment charging him with securities fraud, wire fraud, and five counts of computer fraud.
He is charged with gaining unauthorised access to Office365 email accounts belonging to corporate executives employed by certain US-based companies to obtain non-public information, including information about impending earnings announcements, between January 2019 through May 2020.
He is also charged with using that information to purchase securities that he sold in short order for “substantial profits” after the material information became public.
The statement also said that Westbrook implemented auto-forwarding rules, designed to automatically forward content from the corporate executives’ compromised email accounts to email accounts controlled by Westbrook, on several occasions.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
