A 18-Year-Old Is Accused of Hacking 60,000 Sports Betting Accounts

An 18-year-old Wisconsin man has been charged with attempting to hack into and steal from thousands of sports betting and daily fantasy sports accounts, according to a news statement from the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Joseph Garrison, 18, is accused of being a member of a gang that stole $600,000 from 1,600 sports betting and fantasy sports accounts. The sports betting website that was accessed during the attack was not mentioned in court filings related to Garrison's accusations.

Garrison turned himself in to police in New York on Thursday, and he now faces six accusations, including unauthorised computer access and wire fraud. If found convicted on all charges, Garrison could face up to 57 years in prison.

According to the accusations, Garrison employed credential stuffing assaults to obtain access to the accounts. When stolen usernames and passwords from earlier data breaches are used to access accounts on other sites, this is called phishing. According to court filings, Garrison broke into around 60,000 accounts in total.

Law authorities discovered 700 config files used for hacking on Garrison's computer during a check of his residence in February 2023. These were linked to a slew of company websites. They also discovered approximately 40 million username and password pairs in files.

In response to the charges, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated:

“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.”

By fLEXI tEAM