Description: Seattle, Washington, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with committing a large data breach.

Paige Thompson committed the second-largest data breach in United States history at the time, causing tens of millions of dollars in damage and emotional and reputational harm to numerous individuals and entities. The district court correctly calculated Thompson’s sentencing range under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines) to be 168 to 210 months of imprisonment. It then granted a roughly 98% downward variance to time served (approximately 100 days) and five years of probation.

Before the events at issue, Thompson worked as a Systems Engineer at Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). S3 is “an object storage service” offered to businesses by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon S3, Amazon Web Servs., https://aws.amazon.com/s3/ [https://perma.cc/L74B-8GXY] (last visited Dec. 2, 2024). Over two years after her employment at Amazon ended, Thompson began hacking AWS customers’ accounts. She used a virtual private network service and The Onion Router network to anonymize her activity. Using a programming script, she scanned millions of publicly available IP addresses associated with AWS for vulnerabilities in their systems.

Outcome: Reversed for resentencing.

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