By: Andy Yu

A Seattle Jury has found Paige Thompson guilty for unauthorized access to protected computers and wire transfer fraud.

Last Friday, former Amazon employee, Paige Thompson was convicted under several charges of wire fraud transfers and unauthorized access of protected computers. This sentence comes after Paige Thompson’s unlawful access to the private information of millions of users using Capital One, a wide-known and trusted banking company.

After multiple hours of deliberation a Seattle jury charged Paige Thompson with multiple accounts of wire fraud and found that she had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Paige’s legal team argued that her actions were those of an ethical hacker, someone who finds vulnerabilities and reports them to companies so that they can be fixed. However, Nicholas W. Brown, the attorney for the Western District of Washington, wrote in a legal statement that she was “[f]ar from being an ethical hacker trying to help companies with their computer security, she exploited mistakes to steal valuable data and sought to enrich herself.”

Paige Thompson was originally a former employee of Amazon, however this employment was short-lived. She departed just one year after she was hired. Her time there provided valuable tools that she took advantage of to jeopardize the privacy of millions of people.

Paige Thompson used misconfigured Amazon Web Services accounts to download the data of the users of multiple large companies. In addition, she used the breached accounts to mine cryptocurrency, money that went directly into her pocket.

Capital One, one of the companies who suffered a security breach under, agreed to pay 270 million dollars in reparations to compensate for their lack of security measures.

These security breaches are becoming more and more deadly as our lives become more reliant on digital technology. The ease at which Paige Thompson was able to access and jeopardize the privacy of millions is very consequential. Paige Thompson’s encroachment on the privacy of capital one users should not be overlooked in the general public as these security breaches can lead to many dire consequences.