A former University of Michigan football coach, Matthew Weiss, has been indicted on 24 counts of hacking into thousands of athlete and alumni accounts. Over an eight-year span, Weiss allegedly downloaded private data, including “intimate” photos, from over 150,000 athletes. He gained unauthorized access to a student-athlete database of over 100 colleges and universities, compromising the personally identifiable information and medical data of the affected students.
Weiss has been charged with 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft. He allegedly used the stolen data to gain access to social media, email, and cloud storage accounts of more than 2,000 athletes and over 1,300 students and alumni across the country. The indictment also states that Weiss targeted female college athletes based on their school affiliation, athletic history, and physical characteristics.
Weiss’ actions were deemed particularly egregious as he downloaded personal, intimate photos and videos without consent. His attorney has not commented on the matter. The FBI and University of Michigan police worked together to bring Weiss to justice, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office promising to move aggressively to prosecute computer hacking cases in the future.
If convicted, Weiss faces up to five years in prison on each count of unauthorized access and two years on each count of aggravated identity theft.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-university-michigan-football-coach-indicted-hacking-accounts/story?id=119997628