A 22-year-old member of the infamous ShinyHunters hacking group has been sentenced in the US for his role in a global cybercrime operation.
Sebastien Raoult, aka Sezyo Kaizen, was apprehended in 2022 in Morocco and was extradited to the United States in January 2023, where he was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The US authorities said that Raoult and his co-conspirators hacked enterprise computer networks worldwide to steal confidential information and customer records, including private and financial data.
Hackers then sold stolen data on underground forums, such as RaidForums, EmpireMarket, and Exploit. Between April 2020 and July 2021, ShinyHunters posted sales of hacked data from more than 60 companies, according to the US Department of Justice. In some instances, ShinyHunters threatened to leak or sell stolen sensitive files if the victim did not pay a ransom.
Raoult was involved in the creation of numerous phishing sites, through which the criminals obtained the account credentials of employees of victim companies. Using stolen credentials, the hackers breached victims’ accounts and stole the data of interest, as well as credentials to access additional data on companies’ networks and third-party service providers.
In total, the hackers stole hundreds of millions of customer records and caused loss to victim companies that is estimated to exceed $6 million, the DoJ said.
In addition to the prison sentence, Raoult was ordered to pay $5 million in restitution.
