SEATTLE – A Swiss hacker has been charged by the Department of Justice with computer harassment and identity theft, just over a week after the hacker received credit for aiding in a burglary to the online systems of the US security camera startup.
A lawsuit against 21-year-old Till Kottmann was brought Thursday by a grand jury in Washington’s Western District.
Federal prosecutors said Thursday that Kottmann, of Lucerne, Switzerland, was first charged in September on a range of charges dating back to 2019 including stealing credentials and data and publishes source code and property information from more than 100 entities on the web.
Kottmann had described the latest hack and leak of photographs from customers of California security camera provider Verkada as part of a “hacktivist” reason for exposing the dangers of a major investigation.
U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman denied those reasons in a statement Thursday.
“These actions can increase vulnerability for everyone from large corporations to individual consumers,” Gorman wrote. “Surrounding oneself in an altruistic cause that is said to remove the criminal stigma from such harassment, theft and fraud.”
Kottmann did not immediately return an online request for comment Thursday.
Swiss authorities said they attacked Kottmann’s home in Lucerne late last week at the request of U.S. authorities.
The uprising linked several hacks to Kottmann over the past year, including one targeting an anonymous security device maker based in the Seattle area and another influences a manufacturer of ingenious equipment.
In several cases, prosecutors alleged that Kottmann inappropriately used valid employee credentials to access source code databases. The uprising says Kottmann also seized the Washington state Department of Transportation, a carmaker and financial investment firm.
The sentence does not mention Verkada’s infamous hack last week, which attracted attention as it featured live camera feeds and video footage from schools, prisons, factories, gyms and corporate offices.
Kottmann, who uses their pronunciation, told The Associated Press last week that they belonged to an organization nicknamed APT-69420 Arson Cats, a small collection of “mostly queer hackers , without support from any countries or capital but instead support from the desire for sport, to be gay and a better world. ”
Kottmann has previously drawn attention to the release of lock-in products to expose security flaws, including from US chipmaker Intel last year.