A hacker who stole and offered Ed Sheeran songs for crypto will get jail time

Adrian Kwiatkowski, a hacker from Ipswich in England who stole two unreleased songs by Ed Sheeran, has been sentenced to 18 months in jail, in line with the BBC. Kwiatkowski offered Sheeran’s tracks, together with 12 different songs by American rapper Lil Uzi Vert, for cryptocurrency value £131,000 (US$148,000) on the darkish internet. UK prosecutors mentioned Kwiatkowski received his arms on the unreleased tracks by hacking into their cloud-based accounts. They did not specify which cloud companies these have been, however he stole from much more artists, as a result of authorities discovered 1,263 unreleased songs in his possession. 

American authorities launched an investigation again in 2019 after a number of musicians reported to the New York District Legal professional’s workplace that somebody utilizing the identify Spirdark had hacked their accounts and was promoting their content material on-line. Investigators ultimately linked Kwiatkowski to the e-mail tackle Spirdark used with the cryptocurrency account concerned within the case. Additional, his UK tackle was linked to an IP tackle that was present in relation to one of many hacked gadgets. 

When he was arrested, London police discovered seven gadgets that contained 1,263 unreleased songs by 89 totally different artists. Authorities discovered extra incriminating recordsdata in his laborious drive, together with a doc the place he detailed the tactic he used to hack into the victims’ accounts. Additionally they discovered his Bitcoins, which he admitted to receiving in return for the songs. In all, he pled responsible to 19 expenses that included copyright infringement and possessing legal property, sufficient to place him away for a year-and-a-half.