South African man goes to jail after demanding ransom from his former employer
The South African court sentenced his former employer to eight years in prison after breaching its security.
Lucky Majangandile Erasmus, 36, was convicted of 17 charges attempted to extort with payment service provider Ecentric Payment Systems, which has been described as a landmark case.
In a press release, South African police described how Erasmus and company insiders installed the software without the authorization of the Economic system, which granted them remote access, allowing them to steal sensitive data and make unauthorized changes to senior executives’ passwords.
On November 14, 2023, the CEO of Economic received an email describing various aspects of the company’s IT infrastructure and was told that if a ransom demand of $534,260 was not paid within 16 hours, it would be shared with the company’s competitors, regulators, regulators and other political parties. The email was followed by a social media post trying to expose a data breach in Economic.
At the end of November 2023, another ransom demand was proposed – this time asking for one million dollars.
Economic chose to remain calm without paying any money to the blackmailer. It is said that a total of 794,808.51 (approximately $212,000) was lost due to attacks by four of the company’s customers.
Erasmus and his co-defendant, Felix Unathi Pupu, 43, were arrested on December 14, 2023 and have been in custody since then.
Erasmus reached a plea agreement with the authorities and found he was guilty:
- Theft of data
- Trying cyber ransomware
- Internet fraud
- Illegal access to computer systems
- Use unauthorized software or hardware tools
- Interfere with networks, data and storage media
- Unauthorized password reset
The professional commercial crime court in Bellville sentenced Erasmus to eight years in prison and three years for five years, which actually means he will be in jail for five years. He was also declared unfit for possessing a gun.
The conviction of Erasmus is one of the first publicly reported convictions proposed in 2021 to address the growing threat of cybercrime in South Africa.
PUPU will appear in court later this month.
All organizations are wise to take care of defending their networks from intrusions and to recognize the possible threats without taking protection, with appropriate measures (if appropriate steps).
