14 DAY TRIAL // A Florida man has pleaded guilty for his role in orchestrating spam campaigns for profit behind the cover of a legitimate business named A Whole Lot of Nothing LLC.
In December 2015, US authorities arrested Timothy Edward Livingston, 30, of Boca Raton, Florida; Tomasz Chmielarz, 32, of Rutherford, New Jersey; and Devin James McArthur, 27, of Ellicott City, Maryland, on charges of hacking and sending spam.
Authorities said that Livingston operated the above-mentioned company since 2011, providing on-demand spam campaigns for both legitimate businesses, such as insurance companies, but also illegal parties, such as entities selling untested pharmaceutical drugs.
Livingston ran botnets, proxy networks, and hacked companies
Investigators said Livingston hired Chmielarz to write the company's spam software. He also instructed Chmielarz and McArthur to hack into corporate networks and the websites of other companies, so they could take over corporate emails and company servers to send out spam from computers that were not blacklisted.
The three built botnets to send out their spam, and proxy networks to avoid detection. The group charged between $5 to $9 for each spam email that resulted in a business transaction for the client.
The US Department of Justice indictment says Livingston and his partners hacked into at least four companies.
Authorities also accused the three of stealing user data from the servers of some of those companies.
The criminal complaint reveals that Livingston provided the login credentials for an employee at a company and asked his two partners to scrape the victim's servers for user information. Investigators suspect that the two stole around 10 million user records from this target and millions more from other companies.
Livingston partners in crime pleaded guilty in June
Chmielarz and McArthur already pleaded guilty in June 2016. Livingston pleaded guilty on Thursday, October 27, and is awaiting sentencing. The sentencing court meeting is scheduled for January 27, 2017.
Livingston pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers and access devices, conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with electronic mail, and aggravated identity theft.
He faces up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $750,000. Authorities also seized from Livingston $1,346,442, a 2009 Cadillac Escalade and a 2006 Ferrari F430 Spider.