data theft

Two sibling contractors convicted a decade ago for hacking into US State Department systems have once again been charged, this time for a comically hamfisted attempt to steal and destroy government records just minutes after being fired from their contractor jobs.

The Department of Justice on Thursday said that Muneeb Akhter and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, of Alexandria, Virginia, deleted databases and documents maintained and belonging to three government agencies. The brothers were federal contractors working for an undisclosed company in Washington, DC, that provides software and services to 45 US agencies. Prosecutors said the men coordinated the crimes and began carrying them out just minutes after being fired.

Using AI to cover up an alleged crime—what could go wrong?

On February 18 at roughly 4: 55 pm, the men were fired from the company, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday. Five minutes later, they allegedly began trying to access their employer’s system and access federal government databases. By then, access to one of the brothers’ accounts had already been terminated. The other brother, however, allegedly accessed a government agency’s database stored on the employer’s server and issued commands to prevent other users from connecting or making changes to the database. Then, prosecutors said, he issued a command to delete 96 databases, many of which contained sensitive investigative files and records related to Freedom of Information Act matters.

Despite their brazen attempt to steal and destroy information from multiple government agencies, the men lacked knowledge of the database commands needed to cover up their alleged crimes. So they allegedly did what many amateurs do: turned to an AI chat tool.

One minute after deleting Department of Homeland Security information, Muneep Akhter allegedly asked an AI tool “how do i clear system logs from SQL servers after deleting databases.” Shortly afterward, he queried the tool “how do you clear all event and application logs from Microsoft windows server 2012,” prosecutors said.

The indictment provides enough details of the databases wiped and information stolen to indicate that the brothers’ attempts to cover their tracks failed. It’s unclear whether the apparent failure was due to the AI tool providing inadequate instructions or the men failing to follow them correctly. Prosecutors say they also obtained records of discussions between the men in the hours or days following, in which they discussed removing incriminating evidence from their homes. Three days later, the men allegedly wiped their employer-issued laptops by reinstalling the operating system.