Charles Harvey Eccleston pleaded guilty to committing a federal computer crime. The former Nuclear Regulatory Commission employee admitted that he planned to launch a cyber-attack on government computers with the use of a virus called spear-phishing.
The ex-government employee attempted to hack several emails from the Department of Energy (DOE) employees. According to the article from The Hill, the spear-phishing scheme lures employees to click malicious links from deceptive emails. What Eccleston really aimed to achieve was to derive sensitive nuclear weapon-related information and expose it to foreign governments by planting a computer virus to the DOE's computer network.
In a report from ABC News, it was revealed that Eccleston did the federal crime because he got furious when he lost his job. He calls himself a patriot but after termination, he hatched a plan to expose the energy department and its most protected information.
His crime can be traced back in 2013 when he migrated to the Philippines right after he was fired from the NRC. He just walked into a foreign embassy and offered $18,800 for a list of more than 5,000 email addresses of the Department of Energy's employees. Eccleston even said that he would sell "top secret" information to Iran, or China, or Venezuela if the embassy refused his demands. The embassy then contacted the FBI where the latter reached out to Eccleston to coordinate on his planned cyber attack.
According to the International Business Times a spear-phishing attack involves creating a legitimate-looking email that infects the recipient's computer when opened. The FBI said Eccleston sent spear-phishing emails to over 80 computers in January but failed to transfer any computer virus or malware to the computer network. The FBI said the email link used, which was an invitation to a science conference, was harmless an undercover FBI agent was the one who sent them.
U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Channing Phillips said they are committed to prosecute people like Eccleston, who plan cyber attacks against the US government. He thanked the help of the FBI getting the former federal employee arrested before he could do any damage. Eccleston is now being held accountable for actions that could have threatened the national security.
