Rigzone founder David Kent faces charges of conspiracy and fraud over hacks

A founder of an oil and gas networking website hacked and stole information's from a rival site that he himself created. He was charged and arrested as reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

40-year-old David Kent is facing criminal charges filed at the Manhattan federal court over accusation of stealing more than 500,000 in user information from Rigzone.com. In 2010, the alleged hacker sold the said site for $51 million in order to increase the members of his new site Oilpro.com. When Kent created Rigzone in 2000, it has allowed its members to create profiles and also upload resumes to the site as per Reuters.

According to the details of the case, Kent tried to sell Oilpro to DHI, misrepresenting the details of the site by making it look that it has increased its members via standard marketing methods.

As reported by Quartz, the actual numbers of Oilpro weren't really growing satisfactorily that is why he opted to hack Rigzone to swipe the contact information's from Rigzone using a backdoor pass to access the resumes database. The suspect was aided by his unnamed accomplice who in the end testified against him and became the case's informant.

According to FBI's spokeswoman, Kelly Langmesser, Kent was arrested in Houston and was charged with wire fraud and conspiracy. Michael Durney, DHI's Group Chief Executive said they are in full cooperation with the law enforcers regarding the ongoing investigation.

According to Oil Voice, there has been an estimate of 111,000 Rigzone accounts that were the subject of hacking and these information were used by the Oilpro site.

There had been two incidents of hacking in 2014 and 2015 that Rigzone went through. These actions resulted with its members being lured into joining Oilpro. Investigations say that it has been the intention of Kent to build a website that DHI would be interested in buying.

Tags

Rigzone, Rigzone.com, Oilpro.com, Rigzone founder, DHI Group, David Kent, wire fraud, Conspiracy, Hacking, Kelly Langmesser, Michael Durney

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