The person behind the massive Capital One data breach that
exposed more than 100 million records will go before a federal judge on Friday
and ask to be released on bail.
The transgender Paige Thompson, who identifies as female, is
expected to say that being held in jail with male inmates is a threat to her
mental health, according to The Associated Press.
Thompson is currently being held in the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac and
prosecutors are expected request she be held as she represents a flight risk
and has threated to harm others and herself.
Thompson’s lawyers countered by asking that their client be
released to a half-way house where she can be monitored.
The FBI arrested the former software engineer on charges of
computer fraud and abuse after she accessed Capital
One Financial Corp. data through a misconfigured web application firewall
and stole Social Security numbers, names, birth dates, bank account numbers and
other personal information on more than 100 million people.
Thompson then posted on GitHub about the hack, which
occurred between March 12 and July 17. Another GitHub user contacted Capital
One and after the financial company confirmed the intrusion and theft, it
alerted the FBI on July 19.
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