Snowflake Hacker Pleads Guilty Over Breaches Affecting at Least 100 Million People

Connor Moucka, a 26-year-old Canadian national, pleaded guilty to hacking over 165 organizations, pilfering billions of records, and extorting numerous entities, according to prosecutors. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the guilty plea on Wednesday. The hacker targeted the cloud provider Snowflake, enabling him and his co-conspirators to infiltrate numerous clients, including AT&T, LendingTree, and Ticketmaster.

Moucka extracted data from over 100 million AT&T customers, encompassing call and text records, banking details, driver's license information, and Social Security numbers. Over the years, Moucka and his accomplices garnered more than $2.5 million in ransom payments. Moreover, he received approximately $500,000 for selling victims' data on hacking forums, such as BreachForums.

The affected victims incurred $9.5 million in losses, as reported by the DOJ. FBI special agent W. Mike Herrington remarked that Moucka's threats and re-extortion methods were "calculated and predatory," causing genuine harm to his victims, both corporate and individual. Moucka, who operated online as Waifu and Judische, was apprehended in Canada at the end of 2024, shortly after the Snowflake breaches.

Austin Larsen, a senior researcher at Google's cybersecurity firm Mandiant, who had been scrutinizing the Snowflake hacks, characterized Moucka as "one of the most consequential" hackers of 2024. Moucka is slated for sentencing on October 27 and faces potential decades in prison.