Hacker who sold UPMC employee data on the dark web pleads guilty

Paula Reed WardPAULA REED WARD | Thursday, May 20, 2021 11:57 a.m.

A Michigan man pleaded guilty Thursday morning to hacking a UPMC employee database in 2014 and stealing the personal information of more than 65,000 people and then selling it on the dark web. ... Justin Sean Johnson, 30, will be sentenced by U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Hornak in about four months. He is being held in the Butler County Prison and appeared for Thursday’s hearing on an online video program.

Johnson faces a maximum of seven years in prison after pleading guilty to just two of 43 counts against him. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of aggravated identity theft, although he accepted responsibility for all of the conduct laid out in the indictment. ... According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Melucci, Johnson, investigators with the IRS, U.S. Postal Service and U.S. Secret Service conducted a nearly five-year investigation concerning Johnson and his co-conspirators.

They found that Johnson, who had become an expert in the PeopleSoft software used by UPMC, used that expertise to hack their employee database. ... He then sold that information, using the moniker “The Dearth Star” and later “Dearthy Star” on the dark web.

“Virtually every UPMC employee’s [personally identifiable information] was victimized,” Melucci said. “The intruder clearly had a high skill set.” ... Then, in 2014, the prosecutor continued, the IRS received hundreds of false 2013 tax returns seeking to have the refunds sent on Amazon.com gift cards.

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