DraftKings Hacker Who Helped Steal 600K Sentenced to 30 Months

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has confirmed the sentencing of one Kamerin Stokes, 23, known as “TheMFNPlug,” who pled guilty to one count of conspiring to commit computer intrusion.

He will spend the next 30 months in a federal prison with three years of supervised release and will have to forfeit $1,327,061 in restitution to DraftKings, along withith $125,965.53 in forfeiture. 

Person Involved in DraftKings Credential Stuffing Attack Sentenced 

Stokes helped compromise over 60,000 DraftKings accounts and helped steal more than $600,000 from the company, which saw DraftKings’ share drop by 5% on NASDAQ, the result of reduced consumer confidence. 

However, the hack deployed by Stokes did not exploit an inherent vulnerability in DraftKings’ newly-launched at the time mobile sportsbook. Rather, it relied on a poor Internet culture among consumers.

Stokes’s attack was based on “credential stuffing,” by which he obtained the leaked passwords and usernames from other platforms of people who were also registered at DraftKings, successfully breaching accounts. However, Stokes did not perpetrate the theft himself.

Fraud Is Fun, Prosecutors Disagree

Rather, after identifying which credentials matched DraftKings’ user base, he sold the data on the dark web, with others stepping in to secure the balances. They did so by adding a new payment method and verifying it through a $5 deposit, after which they moved to rapidly empty the accounts. 

One of those people has been identified as Joseph Garrison, a teenager from Wisconsin, who has been known to say that “fraud is fun.” Garrison has pleaded guilty and has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, with another co-conspirator awaiting sentencing.

As to Stokes – he has actually reopened his darkweb activities to meet his attorney fees, putting him in a bizarre situation where he is standing trial for helping perpetuate the attack on DraftKings while possibly continuing his nefarious activities to foot his bills.