Twin Brothers Plead Guilty to Charges Involving 96 Federal Databases After Contractor Termination

Muneeb Akhter and Sohaib Akhter, 34-year-old twin brothers employed at the federal contractor Opexus, pleaded guilty to charges that they destroyed 96 government databases. Opexus terminated the pair after discovering their prior criminal records, which included hacking and wire fraud charges. Muneeb Akhter has since tried to recant his guilty plea in handwritten notes to the judge.

The firing took place during a Microsoft Teams meeting that lasted only a few minutes. The brothers failed to close the meeting, which continued recording their subsequent conversation. In the recorded exchange, Sohaib Akhter asked Muneeb Akhter, "Still connected?

Separately, Instructure reached an agreement with the hackers known as ShinyHunters. U.S. schools. ShinyHunters posted ransom messages on victims' screens during the Canvas incident and claimed to have stolen records of 275 million students.

Instructure stated that data stolen by ShinyHunters had been returned to Instructure, destroyed on the hackers’ systems, and that no customers would be further extorted. The company did not explicitly state whether it paid a ransom to ShinyHunters. Wired reported the resolution of the Canvas ransomware debacle.

Owe Martin Andresen was arrested during a raid on his home and two other locations earlier this month. U.S. and German prosecutors identified him as the alleged administrator of Dream Market. The dark-web marketplace launched in 2013 and voluntarily shut down in 2019.

U.S. and German prosecutors say Owe Martin Andresen made millions of dollars from Dream Market’s commissions. Some of those proceeds were laundered through gold bars bought from a company in Atlanta.