Twin Brothers Arrested For Hacking Into State Department Networks

Twin brothers Sohaib Akhter and Muneeb Akhter have been sentenced for imprisonment for hacking into the networks of the State Department. Sohaib has been sentenced for 24 months while Muneeb has been jailed for 39 months in prison. They have been convicted with the charges of computer frauds. The twins, 23 have been accused of using Sohaib’s position as a State Department contractor for accessing the confidential information.

In the month of February 2015, Sohaib who was working with the State Department gained access to confidential information of his colleagues, former employees and an agent with the law enforcement department. This agent was investigating the earlier criminal activities of these brothers. They were earlier accused of stealing credit card information and other personal details of people.

The twins had planned to install a small device on the server of the State Department. It would have given then unrestricted access to any of the information remotely. But the device broke as they were trying to install it. The brothers have been accused of harming companies and other individuals through their activities. Similar to Sohaib, Muneeb too in the month of November 2013 accessed database of a company in Rockville, Maryland where he was employed. He installed malware on the servers of the company of his employment to gather more votes for an online contest in which he was participating. He also used to server to send spam mails to over 10 thousand students of George Mason University asking them for their votes.

Both of them have pleaded guilty for the charges under which they have been accused of in June 2015. Mueeb is also charged and he subsequently pleaded guilty for falsifying information and for the obstruction of justice.