FBI has arrested two men from North Carolina for supposedly participating in the Hack The Pentagon program to target high-ranked federal officials. If you remember, Pentagon had undertaken the Hack The Pentagon bug bounty award program in April 2016 to find bugs on its website. The Hack The Pentagon bug bounty program was undertaken in association with HackerOne and hackers and security researchers were paid $150,000 for finding bugs and flaws. On Thursday, 24-year old Justin Gray Liverman and 22-year old Andrew Otto Boggs both were arrested by FBI. FBI said that they were famous by their nicknames D3f4ult and Incursio, respectively. FBI said that D3f4ult and Incursio had allegedly leaked personal identifiable information of more than 30,000 FBI employees. In a release, the Eastern District of Virginia Department of Justice announced the arrest of Andrew Otto Boggs and Justin Gray Liverman, without mentioning the charges faced by them. FBI said that the two could be involved with the hacker group called “Crackas with Attitude” who had hacked and leaked information about high ranking FBI officials. Justin Liverman, who goes by the handle “D3F4ULT” stated on his page of Linkedln that he has participated in HackThePentagon program. According to court complaint, access to private accounts of the US government senior officials as well as members of their family was allegedly gained by the group; and they then post derogatory information on Internet which was collected from those accounts. Liverman and Boggs both are charged for posing as US federal government employees, deliberately accessing the computer without the authorization for gaining access to the US govt. agency, engaging in conduct with the aim to convey the misleading information, along with making telephone calls to harass. According to court complaint, conspiracy started around 17th July, 2015, and targeted 4 senior officials of government, a company CEO which provides technology to government and spouse of the CEO.
