According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, an 18-year-old man from Wisconsin has been charged for attempting to hack into and steal from thousands of sports betting and daily fantasy sports accounts.
Joseph Garrison, 18, was allegedly part of a gang that stole $600,000 from 1,600 sports betting and fantasy sports accounts. Court documents relating to Garrison’s charges did not mention which sports betting website was accessed during the hack.
Garrison surrendered to authorities in New York on Thursday and now faces six charges including unauthorized access to computers and wire fraud. If found guilty on all charges, Garrison could face jail time of up to 57 years.
The charges allege that Garrison used credential stuffing attacks to gain access to the accounts. This is when stolen usernames and passwords from previous data breaches are used to access accounts on other platforms. Court documents show that Garrison hacked into around 60,000 accounts in total.
During a search of his home in February 2023, law enforcement found 700 config files used for hacking on Garrison’s computer. These were related to dozens of corporate websites. They also found files containing nearly 40 million username and password pairs.
Speaking of the charges U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said:
“As alleged, Garrison used a credential stuffing attack to hack into the accounts of tens of thousands of victims and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today, thanks to the work of my Office and the FBI, Garrison learned that you shouldn’t bet on getting away with fraud.”
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An experienced iGaming commentator and analyst based in New York City - Jenny reports on regulation and gambling industry news and events.