WORCESTER – A former student at Assumption University students will serve a federal prison sentence for hacking into the computer networks of two companies and extorting them for ransom.
U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman sentenced Matthew Lane, 20, of Sterling, to four years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of $25,000, restitution of $14,075,540.58 and forfeiture.
Lane pleaded guilty to cyber extortion conspiracy, cyber extortion, unauthorized access to protected computers and aggravated identity theft in June 2025.
The sentencing took place on Oct. 14. The office of U.S. Attorney Leah Foley announced the sentencing on Thursday, Nov. 13, after the end of the federal government shutdown.
According to federal prosecutors, between April and May 2024, Lane agreed with others to extort $200,000 from a telecommunications company by threatening to leak customer data previously stolen from the company’s network.
Prosecutors also say that between August and December 2024, Lane used stolen login information to access the network of a software and cloud storage company that primarily serves the education industry. After accessing that company’s network, they say Lane transferred personal information of students and teachers to a server he leased in Ukraine.
Similar to the first company, the software company and others later received threats that the names, email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, medical information, residential addresses, parent and guardian information, passwords, and other data of 60 million students and 10 million teacher would leak if the company did not pay $2.85 million in Bitcoin.
