Nickolas Sharp worked on one of the teams investigating his illegal activities while holding Ubiquiti data ransom for 50 Bitcoin. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala
A former employee of network technology provider Ubiquiti pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges on Thursday after posing as an anonymous hacker in an attempt to extort almost $2 million worth of cryptocurrency while employed at the company.
Nickolas Sharp, 37, worked as a senior developer for Ubiquiti between 2018 and 2021 and took advantage of his authorized access to Ubiquiti’s network to steal gigabytes worth of files from the company during an orchestrated security breach in December 2020. The press release announcing his plea does not mention the company’s name, calling it only Company-1, but he has been identified publicly as a former employee and in a lawsuit filed by Ubiquiti.
Prosecutors said that Sharp used the Surfshark…
