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FACT SHEET · NICKOLAS-SHARP

Nickolas Sharp ("Company-1", per DOJ)

Witting
LEGAL STATUS

Pleaded guilty (Feb 2, 2023). Sentenced to six years in prison, 3 years' supervised release and $1,590,487 restitution (May 10, 2023).1

AS OF 2026-10-20

Case-file story

ITT-008ILLUSTRATIVEWitting
BREACH · RANSOM · FAKE LEAK · $4 BILLION

The Whistleblower Was the Hacker

PLEADED GUILTY · 6 YEARS

Timeline

  1. 2018-08Employed by Company-1 from about this date1
  2. 2020-12Steals gigabytes of data using administrative access1
  3. 2021-04-01Employment ends, on or about this date1
  4. 2023-02-02Pleads guilty2
  5. 2023-05-10Sentenced to six years1

Verified facts

  • While purportedly remediating the breach he created, he extorted the company as an anonymous hacker for nearly $2 million.1
  • Posing as an anonymous whistleblower, he caused misleading news articles. These were followed by a loss of over $4 billion in market capitalization, per DOJ.1
  • He was a senior developer with access to the company's AWS and GitHub credentials.1

Editorial notes

  • DOJ calls the employer "Company-1." This site uses DOJ's anonymization and does not repeat press identifications.

Sources

  1. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-employee-technology-company-sentenced-six-years-prison-stealing-confidential · Wayback
  2. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-employee-technology-company-pleads-guilty-stealing-confidential-data-and · Wayback
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