Bloomberg writes that 37-year-old Sharp pleaded guilty to charges of intentionally damaging a protected computer, wire fraud, and making false statements to law enforcement. Prosecutors claim he.
In brief: An engineer who worked for wireless networking products provider Ubiquiti has been sentenced to six years in prison for stealing gigabytes of confidential data from the company and demanding $1.9 million for its return. Nickolas Sharp claimed his plan was an « unsanctioned security drill » to improve network safety, but the judge didn’t accept this excuse.
Bloomberg writes that 37-year-old Sharp pleaded guilty to charges of intentionally damaging a protected computer, wire fraud, and making false statements to law enforcement. Prosecutors claim he extorted money from Ubiquiti while purportedly working to fix the security breach he’d created.
Sharp asked United States District Judge Katherine Polk Failla that he receive no prison time as the cyberattack was actually an « unsanctioned security drill » that left Ubiquiti « a safer place for itself and for its clients. » Sharp also claimed that Ubiquiti CEO Robert Pera had prevented him from « resolving outstanding security issues, » which led to the engineer developing an « idiotic hyperfixation » on fixing the « out of control » and « not rational » security flaws.
