Federal authorities have accused a Minnesota man with trying to extort $150,000 from Major League Baseball after hacking into its computer system. The US Attorney’s office for the southern district of New York and the FBI have charged Joshua Streit, 30, with illegally streaming content from MLB, as well as from the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL).
The law enforcement agencies said in a news release that between 2017 through August of 2021, Streit operated a website where he illegally streamed the sports leagues’ live games for profit. He gained unauthorized access to the leagues’ websites, and misappropriated login credentials from legitimate subscribers, according to authorities, and his scheme led to losses of about $3 million for one of the “victim sports leagues.”
In addition, authorities said, Streit, also known as Joshua Brody, tried to extort the $150,000 from MLB, threatening to publicize the vulnerabilities on its site that he claimed to have exploited.
“Streit initiated the extortion scheme at the same time that he was exploiting MLB’s computer systems to gain unauthorized access to copyright content that he streamed for profit,” the news release said.
Streit faces five criminal counts including wire fraud, accessing a protected computer, illicit digital transmission, and sending interstate threats.
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