{"id":244588,"date":"2026-09-29T01:21:47","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T06:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/us-soldier-gets-70-months-in-prison-for-extorting-10-tech-telecom-firms"},"modified":"2026-09-29T01:21:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T06:21:47","slug":"us-soldier-gets-70-months-in-prison-for-extorting-10-tech-telecom-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/us-soldier-gets-70-months-in-prison-for-extorting-10-tech-telecom-firms","title":{"rendered":"US soldier gets 70 months in prison for extorting 10 tech, telecom firms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/us-soldier-gets-70-months-in-prison-for-extorting-10-tech-telecom-firms.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A former U.S. Army soldier has been sentenced to 70 months in prison for hacking and extorting at least 10 U.S. technology and telecommunications companies between April 2023 and December 2024.<\/p>\n<p>21-year-old Cameron John Wagenius (also known online as \u2018kiberphant0m\u2019 and \u2018cyb3rph4nt0m\u2019) was arrested in Texas in December 2024.<\/p>\n<p>He pleaded guilty <a href=\"http:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/26000597-wagenius-plead-guilty-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in February 2025<\/a> to hacking AT&amp;T and Verizon after being charged on two counts of unlawfully transferring confidential phone records, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bleepingcomputer.com\/news\/security\/us-army-soldier-pleads-guilty-to-extorting-%20-tech-telecom-firms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in July 2025<\/a> to multiple counts of aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and extortion related to computer fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former U.S. Army soldier has been sentenced to 70 months in prison for hacking and extorting at least 10 U.S. technology and telecommunications companies between April 2023 and December 2024. 21-year-old Cameron John Wagenius (also known online as \u2018kiberphant0m\u2019 and \u2018cyb3rph4nt0m\u2019) was arrested in Texas in December 2024. He pleaded guilty in February 2025 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,1493,1512],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybercrime-malcode","category-law-enforcement","category-mobile-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}