Daniel Rhyne

Introduction

Daniel Rhyne, 59, of Kansas City, Missouri, was sentenced to 32 months in prison for crimes related to his intentional damage to computer networks and extortion of employees, in a case announced by U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer for the District of New Jersey. Rhyne previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp to a two-count Information that charged him with extortion in relation to a threat to cause damage to a protected computer and intentional damage to a protected computer. Judge Shipp imposed the sentence on September 28, 2026 in Trenton federal court.

Background Information

When the scheme began, Rhyne was a New Jersey resident working as a core infrastructure engineer at a U.S.-based industrial company headquartered in New Jersey — identified in court documents only as Victim-1. The position placed him inside the same network he would later turn against his employer. In November 2023, Rhyne took steps to execute a scheme to attack Victim-1’s computer network and extort Victim-1 into paying a ransom: among other things, he initiated unauthorized remote desktop sessions and prepared for the attack by scheduling tasks that would trigger damage to Victim-1’s network. Those scheduled tasks included deleting network administrator accounts, changing passwords of other Victim-1 accounts, and shutting down multiple Victim-1 servers.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted and sentenced. Rhyne admitted rigging his employer’s systems for sabotage and demanding approximately 20 bitcoin — valued at the time at approximately $750,000 — from the company’s staff.

On November 25, 2023, Rhyne sent an extortion email to Victim-1 employees in which he threatened to continue shutting down Victim-1 servers unless and until he received approximately 20 bitcoin, which, at the time, was valued at approximately $750,000. The demand went out after the scheduled tasks — deleting administrator accounts, changing passwords, and shutting down multiple servers — had been put in place to trigger damage, so the man threatening to keep degrading the network was the same engineer who had rigged it, using access his job had granted him.

Public Reaction and Consequences

U.S. Attorney Frazer credited special agents of the FBI’s Newark Field Office, under the direction of Stefanie Roddy, with the investigation, and thanked the FBI’s Kansas City Field Office, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Chris Ormerod, for its assistance. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Taj Moore of the Cybercrime Unit in Newark; Rhyne’s defense counsel was Jonathan F. Marshall, Esq. The office classified the case under its cybercrime docket, with the 32-month term covering both the intentional damage to a protected computer and the extortion built on top of it.

Current Status

Rhyne is serving the 32-month sentence Judge Shipp imposed on September 28, 2026, a disposition announced in the District of New Jersey’s October 5, 2026 press release, number 26-210. The guilty plea to the two-count Information resolved the case without a trial, closing a scheme that began with unauthorized remote desktop sessions in November 2023 and ended in a Trenton federal courtroom roughly two years later. The release lists the press release number and cybercrime topic but no additional counts or defendants.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Rhyne’s career as a core infrastructure engineer is finished in every practical sense: a federal conviction for intentionally damaging a protected computer and extorting its users, admitted in his own plea, is a permanent bar from any role holding privileged network access. The scheme he built — scheduled deletions of administrator accounts, password changes, server shutdowns, and a 20-bitcoin ransom demand aimed at his own coworkers — shows how insider access converts directly into leverage over an employer. For the industrial company, the case documents the cost of an attack staged from the administrator’s chair rather than from outside the firewall.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey, “Former Employee of Industrial Company Sentenced to 32 Months in Prison for Computer Attack and Extortion” — source