Hacker Tillie Kottmann wasn’t shy about bragging how easy it is to steal proprietary computer code and access supposedly secure systems. So, the U.S. feds turned every word into evidence. The future is looking pretty dim for this 21-year-old gender-confused liberal cyber-activist who operated openly from Lucerne, Switzerland.
High profile hacker
Kottmann has been charged by the U.S. government on multiple accounts of wire fraud, conspiracy, and identity theft. The good news is that “it” is also in Swiss custody. Deportation to the States for trial is still up in the air and the hacker can afford a really good lawyer.
The indictment names several co-conspirators who helped Kottmann penetrate the security of “dozens of companies and government entities.”
Once Kottmann had the private data, it was posted wide open to the public online at git.rip which became a one stop shop for code repositories “belonging to major private and public sector entities.”
More than 100 firms were compromised by the hacker team. Swiss authorities raided Kottmann’s home to seize devices and files.
Kottmann may be young and have no clue which bathroom to use but managed to retain “the services of Zurich lawyer Marcel Bosonnet, who previously represented Edward Snowden.”
That was a really smart move because the hacker is looking at up to 20 years in prison on more than one count.
Tied to Verkada exploit
Tillie and her hacker crew have been tied to “data breaches from Microsoft, Intel, Nissan, and more.” Companies like Nintendo, Disney, AMD, Qualcomm, Motorola, Adobe, Lenovo and Roblox. Most recently Kottmann hit Verkada.
Tillie gave her pirate marauders “super admin” credentials that gave them “unfettered access to the company’s systems” which were “publicly exposed on the internet.”
Once they were in the hacker had access to “the live feeds of more than 150,000 internet-connected cameras.
These cameras were installed in various facilities including prisons, hospitals, warehouses, and Tesla factories.” Tillie claims to be a socially responsible anarchist.
Kottmann has claimed openly in interviews that the hacker squad “were motivated by an anti-capitalist ideology.”
The group saw themselves as “fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism — and it’s also just too much fun not to do it.”
