Suspect in hack attack on Transform Group CEO gets 18 months in prison

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One of the suspects in the 2018 hacking attack on the CEO of Transform Group, which advises blockchain businesses, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

According to a Bloomberg report, 25-year-old Nicholas Trugila helped the hackers get access to the phone of Michael Terpin and promptly stole $22 million in cryptocurrency.

Trugila has already served 12 months of the sentence and was facing up to 63 months in accordance with sentencing guidelines.

Trugila lived alone in his Manhattan luxury apartment and was known for boasting about his wealth during night outs with friends.

He pleaded guilty to the charges, which included wire fraud and tricking telecom employees into transferring customer cell phone numbers to fake SIM cards controlled by threat actors, in 2021.

In 2018, Trugila played a pivotal role in the SIM-swap hack attack on Terpin. The hackers recruited Trugila to convert stolen bitcoin triggers into cryptocurrency after Terpin lost nearly $22 million crypto in the attack.

Jeffery Udell, defence attorney for Trugila, claimed that his client was diagnosed with autism and "he couldn't comprehend what he was doing online with these people was having real-world effects on people like Mr Terpin".

Udell also described Trugila as "highly intelligent" but with no family support or friends other than the ones he made online.

At the time when he was charged by federal prosecutors in New York, Trugila was already facing charges in California, accused of stealing $1 million in crypto, months after targeting Terpin.