22-Year-old Cypriot hacker sentenced to prison in US for cybercrime

A 22-year-old Greek Cypriot man, Joshua Polloso Epifaniou, has been sentenced to one year and a day in US prison by a federal court of Georgia for cyber crime.

Epifaniou who had been imprisoned in Cyprus since 2017, pleaded guilty to federal computer fraud charges brought in Arizona and the Northern District of Georgia. 

As a result of his conviction, Epifaniou forfeited $389,113 and 70,000 euros to the government and paid $600,000 in restitution to the victims of his fraud. 

Epifaniou is the first Cypriot national ever extradited from Cyprus to the United States.

According to a relevant announcement by the FBI, between October 2014 and Many 2017, Epifaniou cooperated with other persons to steal personal data from a number of databases to extort the websites into paying ransoms under threat of public disclosure. Then, using proxy servers in foreign countries, he was logging into email accounts and was sending messages threatening to leak the sensitive data unless a ransom was paid.

The US authorities describe his actions as “cyber terrorism” adding that among his victims is a website of sports news belonging to Turner Broadcasting System Inc, the website Ripoff Report, an online game publisher in Irvine, and many others.

FBI special agent Sean Caul said that FBI agents and analysts had worked tirelessly on this case.

“Cybercrime is a threat to both our individual privacy and to the security of American companies,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Anthony Martin. “We will work diligently alongside our law enforcement partners to ensure any perpetrators are identified and brought to justice.”