Last Updated on 22/11/2021 by Sunaina
A Minnesota man has been charged with attempting to extort $150,000 from Major League Baseball after hacking into its computer system. Joshua Streit, 30, has been charged by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI with illegally streaming content from MLB, as well as the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL) (NFL).
According to a news release from the law enforcement agencies, Streit ran a website where he illegally streamed live games from sports leagues for profit from 2017 to August of 2021. According to authorities, he gained unauthorised access to the leagues’ websites and misappropriated login credentials from legitimate subscribers, resulting in a $3 million loss for one of the “victim sports leagues.”
Furthermore, authorities claim that Streit, also known as Joshua Brody, attempted to extort $150,000 from MLB by threatening to expose the vulnerabilities on its website that he claimed to have exploited.
“Streit launched the extortion scheme at the same time he exploited MLB’s computer systems to gain unauthorised access to copyright content that he streamed for profit,” according to the news release.
Streit is charged with five criminal counts, including wire fraud, unauthorized access to a protected computer, unauthorized digital transmission, and sending interstate threats.
