An Idaho man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for hacking nearly two dozen entities in the US and stealing the information of over 132,000 individuals.
The man, Robert Purbeck, 45, of Meridian, Idaho, attempted to leverage the stolen information to extort and harass one of his victims, a Florida orthodontist.
According to court documents, in June 2017, Purbeck purchased from an underground marketplace the credentials for the server of a Griffin, Georgia, medical clinic and then accessed the server to exfiltrate sensitive information.
Purbeck stole records containing the names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of more than 43,000 individuals.
In February 2018, he purchased credentials for a City of Newnan Police Department server and then accessed it to steal police reports and other documents. Over 14,000 people were affected by the data breach.
In July 2018, he attempted to extort a Florida orthodontist, demanding a Bitcoin payment in exchange for deleting stolen patient files. He threatened to sell the stolen information, along with the personal information of the orthodontist’s minor child, and harassed the orthodontist and his patients for 10 days.
In August 2019, the FBI executed a search warrant at Purbeck’s home and seized multiple computers and electronic devices containing the personal information of more than 132,000 individuals.
The data had been stolen in attacks against at least 19 victims in the US, including the City of Newnan and the Griffin medical clinic.
Purbeck was convicted in March 2024 of computer fraud and abuse, after pleading guilty. In addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay over $1 million in restitution to his victims.
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