A Kansas City engineer has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for orchestrating a cyber extortion plot against his employer, an industrial firm based in New Jersey. Daniel Rhyne, 59, pleaded guilty to charges of extortion and intentional damage to a protected computer, as announced by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Rhyne, who worked as a core infrastructure engineer, executed a series of malicious tasks on November 25, 2023, targeting the firm’s domain controller. His actions included deleting 13 domain administrator accounts and changing passwords for 301 domain user accounts, as well as impacting 254 servers and 3,284 workstations. The changes effectively locked the company out of its systems and data.
Shortly after the scheduled tasks were executed, employees received an email from an external address warning that their network had been compromised. The email threatened that unless a ransom of 20 bitcoin—approximately $750,000 at the time—was paid, 40 random servers would be shut down daily over a ten-day period.
There is no indication that the firm complied with the ransom demand. Instead, it initiated an internal forensic investigation, which included collaboration with the FBI. This investigation traced the unauthorized activity back to Rhyne’s residential IP address in Warren County, New Jersey, leading to his arrest on August 27, 2024.
Rhyne’s guilty plea was entered on April 1, 2026, in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, and he was sentenced on September 28, 2026. The case underscores the growing concern over insider threats in cybersecurity, particularly as employees with privileged access can pose significant risks to their organizations.
For further details, see the full report by SecurityWeek.
