Romanian gets 5 years in prison for hacking Oregon govt network
A Romanian hacker was sentenced to 56 months for breaking into an Oregon state network and selling access to other U.S. victims.
Intelligence analysis by GPT-5.4 Mini
Catalin Dragomir, a Romanian national, received a federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to breaking into an Oregon state government network and selling access to it. Prosecutors said the case also involved access sales tied to nearly a dozen other U.S. victims and roughly $250,000 in losses.
A man broke into a computer system used by an Oregon state office and then tried to sell the secret entrance to someone else. It is like finding a back door to a building and handing out the key to buyers.
The police said he also took pieces of private information from the computer, like names and passport numbers. They said he sold access to other computer networks too, which caused money losses.
A court sent him to prison for almost five years and took away some cryptocurrency. The case shows that one broken lock can lead to many more problems if the stolen key is shared.
Analysis
What happened
A Romanian national, Catalin Dragomir, was sentenced this week to 56 months in federal prison after admitting he broke into an Oregon state government network and sold that access onward. He had pleaded guilty on February 19 to aggravated identity theft and obtaining information from a protected computer.
How the intrusion was used
According to court documents, Dragomir accessed a computer on the network of the Oregon Department of Emergency Management in June 2021, then sold that access to a prospective buyer. Prosecutors said he also gave the buyer examples of personal data taken from the compromised machine, including names, email addresses, dates of birth, and passport numbers.
The case did not stop with Oregon. Prosecutors said Dragomir sold access to networks belonging to nearly a dozen other victims across the United States. The total losses from those incidents were at least $250,000.
Sentence and recovery
The maximum penalties tied to the charges included prison time, a fine, and supervised release. The court also ordered forfeiture of about 23 Monero, valued at roughly $8,500 at the time described in the article.
Dragomir was arrested in Romania in November 2024 after coordination between U.S. and Romanian authorities, then extradited to the United States in January 2025. The FBI’s Portland Field Office investigated, and the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section prosecuted the case.
Why this case stands out
This is a straightforward example of the access-broker model: one compromise becomes inventory that can be resold. The reporting also underscores how modern cybercrime cases often rely on international arrests, extradition, and cooperation between law enforcement agencies in multiple countries.
Key points
- Catalin Dragomir was sentenced to 56 months in federal prison after pleading guilty.
- He broke into a computer on the Oregon Department of Emergency Management network in June 2021.
- Prosecutors said he sold access and shared samples of stolen personal data with a buyer.
- He also sold access to nearly a dozen other U.S. victims, causing at least $250,000 in losses.
- The court ordered forfeiture of about 23 Monero and he was extradited from Romania in 2025.
