Federal prosecutors announced an indictment against twin brothers living in Alexandria, Virginia, who are accused of a conspiracy to destroy government data hosted by a federal contractor.
The Justice Department said Wednesday that Sohaib and Muneeb Akhter, 34, were fired by a contractor this year and sought to retaliate against the company and the government by deleting databases.
On Feb. 18, Muneeb Akhter deleted around 96 databases full of federal government information, much of it related to sensitive investigations and the Freedom of Information Act, the Justice Department alleged.
In addition, prosecutors claim that Muneeb Akhter took information from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Internal Revenue Service without authorization after the federal contractor canned him.
In 2015, both brothers were sentenced to three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to access a protected computer without authorization and conspiracy to access a government computer without authorization.
The contractor involved is Opexus, according to Bloomberg News. The twins’ criminal history resurfaced after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. performed a background check on Sohaib Akhter. Ultimately, Opexus decided to fire the brothers.
An independent report looking into the incident found that Muneeb Akhter accessed and deleted databases during a Feb. 18 human resources virtual meeting where he and his brother were fired. He was then accused of stealing 1,805 files related to an unspecified project over an hour after the meeting, according to Bloomberg News.
Sohaib Akhter then sent an email to several federal government employees who worked with Opexus, writing that the company “hires Uncleared personnel to work with your data; I was one of these uncleared personnel. The databases are insecure, using the same username and password to be accessed by all. They fired me because some of you determined I was unfit to deal with your data, but I’m telling you there are a lot more people in that organization like me,” according to Bloomberg News.
Sohaib Akhter is also accused of trafficking a password that could be used to get into a computer used by the government for official purposes, the Justice Department said.
Muneeb Akhter is charged with two counts of computer fraud, theft of U.S. government records, conspiracy to commit computer fraud and to destroy records, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 45 years in prison for the computer fraud, record theft and conspiracy to commit computer fraud charges and at least two years each on the two aggravated identity theft charges.
Sohaib Akhter is charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and to destroy records and computer fraud (password trafficking) and faces up to six years in prison if convicted.
