U.S. Soldier Gets 70 Months in Prison for AT&T, Verizon Extortions

Cameron Wagenius, a U.S. Army soldier with privileged access to sensitive systems, leveraged his position and technical knowledge to infiltrate major telecommunications providers and steal metadata belonging to over 100 million customers. This case highlights the severe risks posed by insider threats, particularly when individuals with security clearances or technical roles engage in malicious activity outside their sanctioned duties. The ability to exfiltrate massive datasets and then weaponize them through extortion — including threats to expose national security secrets — underscores the catastrophic consequences of inadequate insider threat monitoring and overly broad data access privileges. Organizations must never assume that trusted employees, contractors, or affiliated personnel are immune to becoming threat actors.