Nicholas Moore, a 24-year-old from Tennessee, pleaded guilty on Friday to hacking the U.S. Supreme Court filing system and illegally accessing records from AmeriCorps and the Department of Veterans Affairs. He faces up to one year in prison for a misdemeanor count of computer fraud, with sentencing scheduled for April 17 in Washington, D.C.
Nicholas Moore of Springfield, Tennessee, admitted in federal court on Friday that he illegally accessed several government computer systems over the course of 2023. The 24-year-old entered a guilty plea for a single misdemeanor count of computer fraud after being charged by the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell is currently set to deliver the sentence for these crimes on April 17.
According to court records, Moore used stolen credentials to bypass security and enter the U.S. Supreme Court’s filing system on 25 separate days. While inside the system, he was able to view and retrieve personal records belonging to the individual whose login information he had obtained. This breach represents a significant unauthorized entry into the digital infrastructure of the nation's highest court.
Following the breaches, Moore utilized an Instagram account with the handle @ihackedthegovernment to share the results of his activities. The court filing indicates that he posted personal information about the individual whose credentials he used. This social media activity served as a public record of the unauthorized access and the specific data he managed to extract from the court's servers.
The scope of Moore's hacking extended beyond the judicial branch to include AmeriCorps and the Department of Veterans Affairs. He admitted to using stolen credentials to gain access to AmeriCorps computer servers and a specific account belonging to a U.S. Marine Corps veteran on the MyHealtheVet platform. Similar to the Supreme Court incident, Moore compromised private data through these executive branch systems.
Prosecutors noted that Moore took screenshots of the personal information he found within the AmeriCorps and Veterans Affairs systems. He then posted these images to the same Instagram account he used to document his other hacks. By pleading guilty, Moore acknowledged his role in the series of digital intrusions that spanned multiple federal agencies and targeted the personal information of several individuals.
Source: Tennessee Man Pleads Guilty to Repeatedly Hacking Supreme Court Filing System
using @ihackedthegovernment as your handle after breaching federal systems is wild. like daring prosecutors to find you. the Supreme Court filing system breach is concerning tho - if he could acces confidential case info that easily, makes you wonder how many other unauthorized people have poked around in there. hopefully this prompts a real security audit rather than just patchwork fixes