Man indicted in streaming service fraud scheme
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PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) — A Beaverton man was indicted for his part in a scheme to steal and resell customer account details for popular streaming services, according to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office-District of Oregon.
According to the indictment, between February 2018 to March 2019, Samuel Joyner, 30, and Evan McMahon, 23, of Sydney, Australia, created and operated an online service called AccountBot. The service offered paid subscription service for customers to get account credentials to access popular internet streaming services at a reduced rate.
Joyner and McMahon illegally acquired the usernames and passwords by doing credential stuffing attacks, a computer hacking technique to obtain large sets of account credentials from large data breaches, according to a press release. AccountBot customers paid between $1.79 to $24.99 in fiat or cryptocurrency.
McMahon was responsible for drafting computer code for the service’s website and managing customer payments. Joyner acquired the majority of stolen user credentials and was responsible for AccountBot customer service.
By March 2019, AccountBot purported to have over 52,000 different registered customers and more than 217,000 unique sets of stolen account credentials.
Joyner was arrested without incident by the FBI and was charged with conspiracy to commit computer and access device fraud, trafficking and use of unauthorized access devices and possession of fifteen or more unauthorized access devices. He made an initial appearance in federal court before a U.S. Magistrate Judge and was arraigned, pleaded not guilty and released pending a five-day jury trial scheduled to begin on July 13, 2021.
McMahon was prosecuted for similar offenses in the District Court of New South Wales in Sydney. In April 2021, he was sentenced to two years and two months to be served by way of intensive corrections order, the most serious, non-custodial sentence imposed in New South Wales.
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