A former employee of the prominent home security company ADT has admitted that he hacked the surveillance streams of dozens of customer homes, mainly to spy on naked women or to tell unsuspecting couples while they were having sex.
Telesforo Aviles, 35, pleaded guilty in federal court this week to a charge of computer fraud and admitted that he had improperly accessed customers’ accounts 9,600 times over the course of a few years. It is alleged that he has done this to more than 200 customers.
Authorities say it the IT technician “took note of which homes had attractive women, and then repeatedly logged in to these customers’ accounts to see their sexual gratification footage.” He did this by adding his personal email address to the customer accounts, which eventually linked him to ‘real-time access to the video streams of their homes’.
Aviles, who is now serving up to five years in prison, sometimes ‘claimed’ that he had to temporarily add himself to ‘test’ the system; in other cases, he added himself without their knowledge, ”officials said.
“This defendant, entrusted with protecting customers’ homes, rather succumbed to their most intimate moments,” acting U.S. Lawyer Prerak Shah said in a statement. “We are happy to hold him accountable for this disgusting betrayal of trust.”
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Yes there is home violations data violations and then there are royal data apocalypse – and this incident certainly falls into the latter category.
The news of the scandal initially appeared in April last year. and ADT fast publicly reported the offense“We deplore the incident and remain committed to working with law enforcement to support them in everything they need to do justice to the victims of the former employee,” wrote the company on its website.
However, the case has inspired several lawsuits –of which three are in progress. Clients claim that ADT tried to contact them shortly after the security incident. “pay them in return for their silenceVia confidentiality agreements. One customer claims that she was initially offered $ 2,500. When she refused, the company allegedly increased the offer to $ 50,000, BuzzFoath reports.
The company further told BuzzFsaid it ‘continued to respond to the lawsuits and resolved the concerns of most of the 220 clients affected, including those who retained attorneys to address the issue.’
‘Some of these customers have been previous victims of assault. They rely on ADT to give them a sense of security and safety. Instead, they were victimized again. ” said a lawyer involved in one of the cases, emphasizing the psychological consequences of such an invasion of privacy.