Daniel Rhyne, a former core infrastructure engineer, has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for attacking his New Jersey employer’s network and demanding a ransom. The 59-year-old pleaded guilty to extortion and intentional damage to a protected computer after locking administrators out of the system and threatening further shutdowns unless paid in Bitcoin.
Federal investigators traced the attack to a hidden virtual machine accessed from Rhyne’s company laptop, which used the password “TheFr0zenCrew!” across compromised accounts. The scheme involved deleting administrator accounts and scheduling server shutdowns, with evidence linking the activity directly to Rhyne through building access logs and IP addresses associated with his home.
Key facts
- Daniel Rhyne was sentenced to 32 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp on September 28.
- The November 2023 attack demanded 20 BTC, then valued at approximately $750,000, to prevent the shutdown of 40 servers per day for 10 days.
- Investigators identified an unauthorized virtual machine with the password “TheFr0zenCrew!” that was used to delete admin accounts and change passwords on thousands of devices.
- FBI complaints linked the attack to Rhyne via his company laptop, noting that browsing on the hidden machine stopped when browsing occurred on his laptop.
- Rhyne pleaded guilty in April to extortion in relation to a threat to damage a protected computer and intentional damage to a protected computer.
Why it matters
Rhyne faced a maximum of five years on the extortion count and 10 years on the damage count before receiving his 32-month sentence.