3 indicted in sophisticated hacking scheme

SEATTLE — Three Seattle men face charges in federal court that they hacked into the computer systems of dozens of Washington businesses — sometimes choosing their victims simply by driving around and picking up their wireless Internet signals.

Joshuah Allen Witt, Brad Eugene Lowe and John Earl Griffin are charged in a 10-count federal indictment unsealed this week accusing them of aggravated identity theft and other charges. Thus far Lowe and Griffin have pleaded not guilty; Witt is in state custody and is expected to soon be transferred to federal custody.

At least 53 Puget Sound-area companies were hit, including a property management firm and a company that helps universities capitalize on technologies they develop. Investigators are still tallying the losses but expect them to be well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Seattle U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan said Wednesday at a news conference.

In some cases, prosecutors say that once the men hacked into the wireless hotspots or burglarized the businesses, they obtained financial data, hijacked payroll systems, stole the identities of employees and routed paychecks to accounts they’d set up in the employees’ names.

Then, they gave themselves raises.

“Once the hackers are in the system, they have a smorgasbord” — and can use the information to open bank accounts, compromise the personal credit information of employees, and access PayPal, Amazon and eBay accounts, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Warma.

The defendants were so ingenious at masking their trail and destroying electronic evidence of their intrusions that sometimes employees of the victimized companies wound up being questioned as potential suspects, investigators said.

And according to the indictment, the defendants took over some companies’ networks in such a way that they were able “to monitor the victim business’s discovery and response to the network intrusion, to include eavesdropping on communications with law enforcement agents.”

The men used the money on items including a Rolex watch and car engines, prosecutors said. They’re also accused of buying a wealth of computer equipment — including powerful antennas — that could be used to further their hacking activities.

It wasn’t immediately clear how police first linked the three to the hacking, but documents filed in federal and state court said the investigation began by August 2008 and the defendants were identified as suspects by late 2010, when all three were initially arrested.

Lowe and Witt were charged with various burglaries in King County Superior Court. Griffin was arrested at a local wine bar when police said he tried to use stolen gift cards, but that case was never referred for prosecution, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the county prosecutor’s office.

Investigators said it helped that the businesses reported the intrusions promptly, and the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force in the region was able to connect the dots among cases that seemed unrelated.

Witt, who has a criminal history involving escape, theft and other convictions, was also arrested for investigation of stolen property in 2007 but ignored orders to appear in court on that case, authorities said. Nevertheless, when he was arrested again last December, the court gave him a 24-hour release in which to post bond. He didn’t post bond or show up in court as ordered, and was taken back into custody in February.

After being released from custody in late 2010, Witt and Lowe continued burglarizing businesses, prosecutors allege. They were re-arrested last Friday.

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