Canadian police just made what could possibly be the first Heartbleed-related arrest. The suspect? A 19-year-old London, Ontario teenager named Stephen Arthuro Solis-Reyes who’s being accused of hacking the Canada Revenue Agency website and stealing almost 1,000 Social Insurance Numbers. Canadian mounties believe Solis-Reyes pilfered info from the agency by exploiting the infamous Heartbleed bug, so they seized his computer as evidence during a raid of his home. If you haven’t read our explainer yet, Heartbleed’s an OpenSSL bug that gives hackers the opening they need to steal sensitive data like passwords. Unfortunately, the tax agency didn’t patch up the vulnerability quick enough and only shut down the site to do so after the digital heist.
Solis-Reyes’ lawyer describes him as a bright, A student, who’s currently too emotional to speak about what happened. Apparently, the teenager turned himself in after authorities threatened to arrest him during one of his classes. He’s slated to appear in an Ottawa court to face two charges (one for unauthorized computer use and another for mischief in relation to data) on July 17th. We’ll likely hear more about the case when that happens, but for now, Canadians might be happy to know they have until May 5th to file their taxes due to what happened.
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Via: CNN
Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police