Hacker Pleads Guilty For Stealing Supreme Court Documents and Leaking via Instagram

Cybersecurity Incident: Unauthorized Access and Data Breach

Nicholas Moore, a 24-year-old from Springfield, Tennessee, has pleaded guilty to unauthorized computer access and fraud, marking a significant cybersecurity breach involving U.S. government systems.

Moore accessed multiple U.S. government systems, exposing vulnerabilities in federal digital infrastructure. Between August and October 2023, he targeted three high-value government systems utilizing stolen credentials.

Moore breached the U.S. Supreme Court's electronic filing system at least 25 times over 25 days, exploiting stolen credentials from authorized users.

Moore's approach relied on credential theft instead of sophisticated exploitation techniques, using login credentials from multiple authorized users across different government platforms. This highlights the vulnerability of systems to stolen authentication factors, despite existing security protocols.

Beyond the Supreme Court, Moore accessed AmeriCorps systems between August 17 and October 13, 2023, extracting personal information using stolen credentials.

Additionally, Moore accessed the Department of Veterans Affairs' MyHealthEVet platform five times between September 14 and October 14, 2023, using compromised credentials to view private health information of a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

Moore publicly posted evidence of his breaches on social media, leading to his identification and prosecution. He pleaded guilty to one count of computer fraud, a Class A misdemeanor, and faces up to one year in prison and $100,000 in fines at his sentencing on April 17, 2026.

The investigation involved the Supreme Court Police Protective Intelligence Unit, the FBI Washington Field Office, the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, and the AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General, coordinated by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Borchert and Rami Sibay.

Based on reporting by Cyber Security News.