{"id":182394,"date":"2026-01-28T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/cybersecurity-expert-sentenced-for-attempted-extortion\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T13:10:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:10:05","slug":"cybersecurity-expert-sentenced-for-attempted-extortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/cybersecurity-expert-sentenced-for-attempted-extortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity expert sentenced for attempted extortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cybersecurity expert sentenced for attempted extortion<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/westfaironline.com\/courts\/cybersecurity-expert-sentenced-for-attempted-extortion\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-01-28 11:51:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: westfaironline.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA cybersecurity expert who was supposed to help protect a Westchester cybersecurity company from hackers has been sentenced to prison for trying to extort $1.5 million from the client.
\nU.S. District Judge Vincent L. Briccetti sentenced Vincent Cannady to three years and a month in federal prison, on Jan. 23, followed by two years of supervised release.<\/p>\n

Cannady, according to court records, threatened to release highly sensitive information that would have imperiled Kyndryl Holdings Inc.\u2019s \u201creputation and shake investor confidence.\u201d
\nIn 2022, Experis Manpower Group, of Milwaukee, hired Cannady, of El Dorado Springs, Missouri, as a cybersecurity consultant. He was assigned to Kyndryl, a publicly-traded company that provides internet technology infrastructure services to multinational businesses. Kyndryl was spun off from Armonk-based IBM in 2021, is headquartered in Manhattan and has offices in Rye Brook.
\nCannady was fired in June 2023 \u201cfor performance reasons,\u201d according to a criminal complaint filed in 2024. Days later he uploaded more than 800 Kyndryl files to his personal cloud account.
\nThe files included sensitive information, such as penetration test reports and diagrams of computer systems that hackers could use to breach Kyndryl\u2019s systems.
\nFor six months he repeatedly demanded a \u201csettlement\u201d from Kyndryl and Experis to stop him from disclosing the information or suing them. One email message, for instance, was copied to two journalist and included the statement, \u201cI have a great business news story for you to share with your editors.\u201d
\nHe continued making threats even after Kyndryl got a federal court to issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting Cannady from disclosing information.
\nThis past September, a federal jury in White Plains convicted Cannady of attempted extortion.
\nThe U.S. Probation Office calculated that he could be imprisoned for 70 to 87 months, under nonmandatory sentencing guidelines.
\nCannady, who represented himself in the case, requested no jail time, in a sentencing memorandum submitted to the judge.
\nHis demands were merely settlement negotiations ordered by a judge in a lawsuit with his employer. \u201cA defendant cannot be ordered to negotiate and then prosecuted for doing so,\u201d he argued.
\nCannady says he had a First Amendment right to petition his employer. He made no threats of violence, property damage or physical harm. Kyndryl is not a helpless victim, but rather a multinational cybersecurity corporation represented by elite counsel. No crime occurred. No money was obtained. He poses no danger to the public.
\nThe alleged harm, he stated, \u201cconsisted of corporate inconvenience, legal fees, and reputational concerns \u2013 none of which constitute extortion damages.\u201d
\nAssistant prosecutors Reyhan Watson and James McMahon recommended imprisonment of 97 months.
\nCannady abused a position of trust when he threatened to release critical infrastructure information unless Experis paid him $535,000 and Kyndryl paid him $1.5 million.
\nHe gave false testimony in the trial. He still claims his conduct was lawful. And he minimized his actions as being the result of a 3-year-long period of anger due to alcohol.
\n\u201cAbsent a meaningful sanction,\u201d the prosecutors argued, \u201cCannady has made clear that he will reoffend or leverage sensitive information again when it suits him.\u201d
\nCannady filed an additional sentencing recommendation on the day he was sentenced. He asked for access to Veterans Administration services, including PTSD, alcohol, mental health and medical treatment.
\nJudge Briccetti recommended that the Bureau of Prisons place Cannady in a Missouri facility that is capable of treating his medical and mental needs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cybersecurity expert sentenced for attempted extortion https:\/\/westfaironline.com\/courts\/cybersecurity-expert-sentenced-for-attempted-extortion\/ Publish Date: 2026-01-28 11:51:00 Source Domain: westfaironline.com Author:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/westfaironline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dreamstime_s_213710213.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[30,24],"class_list":["post-182394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-breach","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182396,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182394\/revisions\/182396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}