Canadian man pleads guilty in massive Yahoo hack
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A Canadian man has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a massive breach at Yahoo that authorities say was directed by two Russian intelligence agents and affected at least a half billion user accounts.
Karim Baratov appeared in a jail jumpsuit before a federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday and entered the pleas to one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse and eight counts of aggravated identity theft.
He is scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 20.
U.S. law enforcement officials call the 22-year-old Baratov a "hacker-for-hire" and say he was paid by members of Russia's Federal Security Service to access more than 80 accounts.
Prosecutors say the Russian agents used the information they stole from Yahoo to spy on Russian journalists and U.S. and Russian government officials.