A former State Department employee will spend 57 monthsin prisonfor a “ sextortion ” cyberstalking crime that fathom like an SVU sweeps - hebdomad secret plan , only weirder and more awful .
While working in the US Embassy in London , administrative support doer Michael C. Ford passed fourth dimension on the job by sending phishing emails to 1000 of people . Once he fox people ( mostly college - aged woman ) into establish him their personal information , he ’d attempt to blackmail them into sending him sexually expressed pictures .
According to the DOJ , Fordwould poseas “ a member of the fictitious ‘ account deletion team ’ for a well - know e - mail service supplier ” to flim-flam people into render up countersign and other sensitive data :
According to the plea document , Ford admitted that between January 2013 and May 2015 , while employed by the U.S. Embassy in London , he used various false name to commit a widespread , outside estimator hacking , cyberstalking and “ sextortion ” campaign design to force victims to provide Ford with personal selective information as well as sexually explicit videos of others . Ford targeted young female person , some of whom were students at U.S. college and university , with a fussy focus on phallus of sorority and aim role model .
While employed by the US government , Ford tried to squeeze 75 masses into sending nudes . He oftenused a State Department computerto do this from within the Embassy .
His one - man weirdy schemelasted over two years , from January 2013 to May 2015 .
Ford was a humbled - horizontal surface support doer , not a extremity of the Foreign Service — yet he conducted an international blackmail scheme from within the US Embassy , and it fill years to notice and catch him .
Yes , the State Department eventually catch him . But if it ca n’t catch an unsophisticated hacker run a brazen but evidently extremely dense scheme using a WORK COMPUTER for over two geezerhood , I ’m more concerned than ever with its power to supervise or prevent cybercrime .
CrimeScandalState Department
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