Supreme Court of the United States

Summary

A 24-year-old Tennessee man pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor computer fraud charge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after admitting he stole credentials from an authorized user to access the Supreme Court's electronic filing system on 25 separate occasions over roughly two months. Using the compromised account, he obtained the victim's personal identifying details, including full name and date of birth, and shared screenshots on an Instagram account called "@ihackedthegovernment" that displayed the user's filing records. The same perpetrator also used stolen credentials to breach electronic portals for AmeriCorps and the Department of Veterans Affairs, exposing a Marine Corps veteran's highly sensitive health information such as prescriptions and blood type. Having no prior criminal history, he now faces a maximum penalty of one year in prison under the plea agreement, with sentencing scheduled for April.

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Description

A Tennessee man named Nicholas Moore, aged 24, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of computer fraud in connection with unauthorized access to the Supreme Court of the United States' electronic filing system. Appearing by video before Judge Beryl Howell in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, January 16, 2026, Moore answered "yes" when asked if he engaged in the various conduct alleged by the government. According to a statement from the Washington US attorney's office, Moore admitted that he accessed the Supreme Court's online filing system on 25 separate days over a roughly two-month period spanning August to October 2023. To carry out these intrusions, he used the stolen credentials of an authorized user, identified in court records by the initials GS. Through this access, Moore was able to view GS's personally identifying information, which included the user's full name and date of birth.

Moore then publicly broadcasted the breach by posting screenshots of GS's Supreme Court homepage to an Instagram account operating under the handle "@ihackedthegovernment." These screenshots revealed not only the user's personal details but also a complete enumeration of GS's current and past electronic filing records contained within the system. The activities extended beyond the judiciary, with Moore also admitting to using other stolen credentials to access electronic portals belonging to AmeriCorps and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In these additional intrusions, he followed a similar pattern of posting screenshots containing the authorized users' personal information to the same Instagram account. For the Department of Veterans Affairs portal specifically, Moore used the credentials of a US Marine Corps veteran to breach the system, subsequently obtaining highly sensitive health information that included prescription records and blood type data.

The legal consequences Moore faced under the plea agreement included a maximum sentence of one year in prison, one year of supervised release, and a $100,000 fine. However, Judge Howell noted that under standard sentencing guidelines, Moore was estimated to receive a lesser penalty of up to six months in prison, a year of supervisory release, and a $20,000 fine. Sentencing was scheduled to be held in April 2026, with the case formally designated as USA v. Moore, D.D.C., No. 1:26-cr-00003. During the hearing, several personal circumstances were brought to light, including the fact that Moore had no prior criminal history, had not graduated high school, and suffered from longstanding mental health disabilities that his attorney, Washington public defender Eugene Ohm, described as having debilitated him since childhood.

The Moore incident occurred against a backdrop of separate, high-profile cyberattacks targeting the federal judiciary's broader electronic infrastructure. Federal authorities had previously disclosed that the federal courts' case management system—an entity distinct from the Supreme Court's specific filing system—had suffered its own significant cyberattack. That particular breach was noted for exploiting vulnerabilities that had been targeted in an earlier intrusion dating back to 2020. Security analyses linked that prolonged compromise to Russian government hackers who had reportedly lurked within the judiciary's records system for years, during which time they accessed sealed court files. This wider security failure had already forced federal trial courts to implement new restrictions on electronic access to sealed documents in an effort to protect sensitive case materials from further exposure.

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