A former State Dept. employee has pleaded guilty to counts related to what the FBI described as “a widespread, international computer hacking, cyberstalking and ’sextortion’ campaign” that targeted hundreds of women during a two-year span.
Michael C. Ford, 36, entered a guilty plea on Wednesday this week inside at Atlanta courthouse, four months after being charged with Internet crimes and wire fraud that prosecutors said he had committed at times from a computer at the U.S. Embassy in London where he worked.
The indictment filed against Ford in August accused him of sending thousands of malicious emails between January 2013 and May 2015 that subsequently allowed him to hijack the accounts of at least 200 victims.
Once an account had been compromised, prosecutors said Ford them forwarded himself stolen messages containing sexually explicit photographs — at least 1,300 of them — and then further pursued no fewer than 75 of his targets with threats and extortion.
“He targeted women at U.S. colleges and universities and was looking for women who were members of sororities,” federal prosecutor Mona Sedky explained when charges were brought earlier this year. “He is just relentless.”
Ford compromised the women’s email accounts by posing as a tech support representative who socially engineered his victims into coughing up their credentials. When he zeroed in on some of his targets, prosecutors alleged, he demanded they supply him with additional photographs or videos, then threatened them further if they wouldn’t comply.
In a statement announcing his guilty plea, the FBI said Ford wrote one of his victims, “don’t worry, it’s not like I know where you live,” then described the woman’s home to her and promised to upload her photographs to a sex site with her home address.
Ford followed through with his threats on several occasions, the FBI said, and forwarded sexually explicit images he had hacked from their accounts to family members and friends.
J. Britt Johnson, a special agent at the bureau’s field office in Atlanta, described Ford as “an individual consumed with sexually themed cyber-stalking and exploitation as well as an individual who felt he was beyond detection and grasp of authorities.”
“With nothing more than a computer and a few keystrokes, modern predators like Michael Ford can victimize hundreds of people around the world,” added Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “While this criminal prosecution may never return the victims’ sense of security, I hope that today’s guilty plea brings them some peace of mind.”
Ford is scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 16.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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