Madison teen, accused in Memorial bomb threats, now charged in New York with hacking a sports betting website
A Madison teen who still faces felony charges over bomb threats made at Memorial High School last year was arrested Thursday and charged by federal authorities in New York City with hacking an online sports betting website, which had user accounts that were then plundered.
The charges filed on Monday against Joseph H. Garrison, 18, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York allege that in November — about three months after Garrison was charged and released for the Memorial threats — he launched what authorities called a “credential stuffing attack” to find username and password combinations, gleaned from sources on the “dark web,” that would work on other websites where users used the same username-password combinations.
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That included the fantasy sports and sports betting website, which was not identified by name in the complaint.
He then sold the working combinations to buyers on the internet, according to a criminal complaint, and provided detailed instructions on how to use them on the betting site. The buyers used them to steal about $600,000 from the site’s user accounts, the complaint states.
In todays world, its high tech versus high crime. Police work like dusting for prints is now supplemented with point and click.
A credential stuffing attack uses a computer program to rapidly attempt to log into financial accounts using a list of known username-password combinations to search for working logins.
Buyers took money from about 1,600 of the site’s 60,000 accounts that were accessed using the stolen credentials, the complaint states.
Intruders were able to clear out an individual user account by setting up a new payment method and depositing $5 into the account to verify it, then withdrawing the account’s balance through that new payment method, the complaint states.
Investigators identified Garrison as the person who carried out…
