“Unlocker” Gets 12 Years in Prison
In the Spring of 2012 a Pakistani citizen contacted an employee of AT&T (T) through Facebook using an alias, and convinced the employee to help him unlock AT&T smartphones. He offered money and the incentive that he could earn more if he recruited other employees to join the scheme. Muhammad Fahd, (real name) helped the recruits set up fake businesses and bank accounts, generate invoices, and got AT&T employees to use their company credentials to unlock phones for customers that were unable to qualify for an AT&T account. In 2013 however, AT&T developed a more sophisticated unlocking system, making it more difficult to bypass the company’s protection software. Fahd then hired a software developer to design malware that could be installed on AT&T devices with the company’s knowledge that would allow him to unlock phones more efficiently and in larger volumes, all done remotely.
Those AT&T employees ‘hired’ by Fahd gave him confidential information about the AT&T systems and company network access which he [passed on to his developer, allowing the developer to design malware that could enter and work on AT&T’s system computers. Over a period of ~3 years, the indictment against Fahd, made in 2017, indicated that ~1.9m smartphones had been unlocked by members of the nefarious group, generating (AT&T’s number) over $201m in lost revenue for the company, as those whose phones where unlocked, stopped making payments on their phones and likely moved to another carrier with the unlocked phone. Fahd, was arrested in Hong Kong in 2018 and extradited to the US and eventually pleaded guilty to wire fraud last year. The judge in the case ordered him to repay ~$200m and to serve 12 years in prison. It might take a while to make much of what Fahd owes to the government as the wages for in-prison work ranges from $0.16 to $0.65/hour. (147,929 years at $0.65/hr.).
Those AT&T employees ‘hired’ by Fahd gave him confidential information about the AT&T systems and company network access which he [passed on to his developer, allowing the developer to design malware that could enter and work on AT&T’s system computers. Over a period of ~3 years, the indictment against Fahd, made in 2017, indicated that ~1.9m smartphones had been unlocked by members of the nefarious group, generating (AT&T’s number) over $201m in lost revenue for the company, as those whose phones where unlocked, stopped making payments on their phones and likely moved to another carrier with the unlocked phone. Fahd, was arrested in Hong Kong in 2018 and extradited to the US and eventually pleaded guilty to wire fraud last year. The judge in the case ordered him to repay ~$200m and to serve 12 years in prison. It might take a while to make much of what Fahd owes to the government as the wages for in-prison work ranges from $0.16 to $0.65/hour. (147,929 years at $0.65/hr.).
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