U.S. Army Soldier, Age 20, Detained for Allegedly Hacking Trump's Phone

U.S. Army Soldier, Age 20, Detained for Allegedly Hacking Trump's Phone

A United States military personnel, specifically an Army soldier, has been apprehended and implicated in allegations of illegally transferring secret phone records after investigations into a 2024 hack that reportedly involved the phone records of the then-President-elect Donald Trump and the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Suspected Trump Call Logs Hacker in Custody

The incident, which occurred on May 23, 2024, resulted in unauthorized access to certain customer accounts on a third-party cloud storage platform named Snowflake. It was determined that this was a deliberate campaign aimed at users utilizing single-factor authentication. One of the individuals suspected of orchestrating the breach of these Snowflake-managed accounts was detained in November. Subsequently, a hacker known as Kiberphant0m boasted about acquiring AT&T call logs for Donald Trump, the President-elect and for Kamala Harris, the Vice President-elect, on a dark web marketplace named BreachForums.

According to Brian Krebs, who played a significant role in the initial investigation and reporting on the hack attacks, a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier has been arrested and indicted on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m. As stated by Krebs, the accused soldier was a communication specialist who had recently served in South Korea. The soldier, Cameron John Wagenius, was apprehended on December 20 near the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. The brief two-page indictment mentions that: "On or about November 6, 2024, in King County, within the Western District of Washington, and elsewhere, Cameron John Wegenius did, in interstate and foreign commerce, knowingly and intentionally sell and transfer, and attempt to sell and transfer, confidential phone records information of a covered entity, without prior authorization from the customer to whom such confidential phone records information related, and knowing and having reason to know such information was obtained fraudulently, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1039(b)."

Allison Nixon, the chief research officer at cybersecurity firm Unit 221B, was among the individuals who managed to trace Kiberphant0m but has since faced ongoing threats and harassment. Nixon stated, "Anonymously extorting the President and VP as a member of the military is a wrong move, but it's an even more detrimental idea to harass people who specialize in de-anonymizing cybercriminals."

1. The arrest of the suspected hacker, Cameron John Wagenius, who is believed to be Kiberphant0m, was announced by Brian Krebs, following his investigation into the hacking of President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Harris's phone records.
2. The indictment against Wagenius stated that he knowingly and intentionally sold and transferred confidential phone records of a covered entity without authorization, including those of President-elect Trump, in violation of cybersecurity laws.
3. The Snowflake hack, which also involved President Trump's phone records, was a deliberate campaign aimed at users utilizing single-factor authentication, resulting in unauthorized access to certain customer accounts.
4. Shortly after the Snowflake hack, a hacker named Kiberphant0m boasted about acquiring AT&T call logs for President-elect Trump and the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on the dark web marketplace BreachForums.
5. The incident involving President Trump's phone records hack has brought significant attention to cybersecurity in politics, highlighting the importance of protecting sensitive information in the digital age.

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