IT boffin faces jail for £300,000 Bitcoin blackmail plot

A security analyst at Oxford BioMedica has been convicted of trying to blackmail the gene and cell therapy company out of £300,000 in Bitcoin. Ashley Liles, 28, helped investigate after the firm’s computer system was first hacked on 27 February 2018. Unbeknown to his colleagues Liles launched his own cyber attack against Oxford BioMedica when he accessed a board member’s private emails over 300 times. Liles altered the original blackmail email and changed the payment address provided by the original…