Ex Yahoo Engineer Pleads Guilty To Computer Hacking: DOJ

SUNNYVALE, CA — A 34-year-old Tracy man accused of hacking into the accounts of thousands of Yahoo users in search of private and personal records including sexual images pleaded guilty in federal court in San Jose, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Monday.

Reyes Daniel Ruiz, a former Yahoo software engineer, admitted to using his access through his work at the company to hack into about 6,000 Yahoo accounts, according to the federal indictment.

Yahoo is based in Sunnyvale.

Prosecutors contend Ruiz cracked user passwords and accessed internal Yahoo systems to compromise the accounts. He also targeted accounts belonging to younger women such as his personal friends and work colleagues, making copies of images and videos that he found in the personal accounts without permission and storing the data at his home. Once he had access to the Yahoo accounts, Ruiz admitted to compromising iCloud, Facebook, Gmail, DropBox and other online accounts of the Yahoo users in search of more private images and videos. After his employer observed the suspicious account activity, Ruiz admitted to destroying the computer and hard drive on which he stored the images.

The engineer was indicted by a federal Grand Jury on April 4 and was charged with computer intrusion, interception of a wire communication. Under the agreement with federal authorities, he pleaded guilty to the one count of computer intrusion.

Ruiz is on release through a $200,000 bond.

His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 3, 2020 at 1:30 p.m. in U.S. District Court Judge, in San Jose. The maximum penalty is five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution.

The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.