A woman from Florida has been arrested after allegedly hacking into the home camera system of a family member as part of an extortion attempt.
Agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested Jennifer Lenell Small on October 26 and charged the 44-year-old with a third-degree felony cybercrime.
Agents say that Small accessed the home camera system of a male family member as part of an extortion attempt that involved a contested will. Her alleged victim was a former employee of her husband's construction company.
"Small gained access to the camera and stored recordings after her husband’s construction company fired the victim and he turned the cell phone back into the company," said a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
The company cell phone that the victim had returned to his employer had an app installed on it that allowed the victim to view footage from his home security camera system. Small allegedly used that app to access video belonging to the victim without his authorization.
A FDLE spokesperson said: "Small sent a short video clip to the victim telling him she had hours of videos that she would use against him in court if the victim did not agree to mediation."
Small was arrested and booked into Collier County Jail on a $7,500 bond. The investigation will be prosecuted by the Office of the State Attorney, 20th Judicial Circuit.
The cybercrime with which she is charged is defined as "using electronic means to stalk a victim, engaging video surveillance by accessing any inherent feature or component of a computer, computer system, computer network, or electronic device, including accessing the data or information of a computer, computer system, computer network, or electronic device that is stored by a third party."
"To make work-issued devices more palatable for users, most corporate-issued devices still allow users to download apps from the legitimate app stores for personal use," commented Lookout's Hank Schless.
"Wiping the mobile device and removing any access to cloud resources for an employee or a specific device should be the first steps in the deprovisioning process. Not executing a factory reset can be very risky if the device falls into the wrong hands."