Inside the $750,000 Bitcoin Heist: Former Engineer Pleads Guilty to Hacking and Extorting National Industrial Giant
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
A disgruntled infrastructure engineer turned a New Jersey company’s own network against them. From deleting admin accounts to a massive Bitcoin ransom demand, here is the full story of the cyberattack that backfired.
TRENTON, N.J. — The digital “inside man” is often a company’s greatest security nightmare. On April 1, 2026, that nightmare became a federal conviction as 59-year-old Daniel Rhyne pleaded guilty to orchestrating a sophisticated hacking and extortion scheme against his former employer.
