Michigan Hacker Tried to Get an Inmate Released Early by Altering Jail Records: Prosecutors

A Michigan resident hacked a government computer network and altered jail records in an effort to get a prisoner released early, according to a Justice Department press release. Konrads Voits, 27, was sentenced to 87 months in prison for “damaging a protected computer” when he allegedly hacked the Washtenaw County computer network using a “phishing” scheme. Voits managed to gain full access to the network and “took the names, addresses, emails, and passwords of many former and present Washtenaw County employees,” federal prosecutors said. He also allegedly accessed at least one prisoner’s jail records and altered them “in an effort to get that inmate released early”—a move that echoes a plot line from a Mr. Robot episode. Authorities were able to catch the hack before any inmates were released. Voits was handed a 3-year term of supervised release after his sentence. He also was ordered to pay $238,517 in restitution to the state, and to hand over his bitcoin interests and electronics.