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Who is Paige Thompson, the Seattle woman accused of hacking Capital One?

caption: Paige Thompson's Twitter page on July 30, 2019. Thompson's online handle was "erratic."
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Paige Thompson's Twitter page on July 30, 2019. Thompson's online handle was "erratic."
Twitter

On Monday, federal investigators raided a small house on Beacon Hill and arrested a 33-year-old woman named Paige A. Thompson.

They were arresting her, they said in a statement on the Department of Justice website, because they believed that she had hacked Capital One, the credit card company, stealing the identity data of 100 million people.

In a statement, Capital One said they do not believe that fraud had occurred.

Online, Thompson called herself “erratic.”

The FBI agent writing his report said she was easy to track because she left digital bread crumbs … and boasted on several forums about hacking Capital One.

Here’s what we know so far about Thompson.

She is a systems engineer who worked at Amazon for 1.5 years.

Thompson worked at Amazon as recently as 2016, for the Amazon Web Services division. (In a statement to CNBC, Amazon said that the hacker “gained access through a misconfiguration of the web application and not the underlying cloud-based infrastructure. ... This type of vulnerability is not specific to the cloud.”)

Thompson’s resume says that she attended Bellevue Community College for a year, and then left for a career opportunity, and that she worked for three years as a systems administrator for Zion Preparatory Academy, a historically black elementary school in Seattle’s Central District.

After that, her resume indicates, she didn’t stay long at her jobs.

Most recently her resume says that she managed her own company.

caption: A screengrab included in the U.S. Department of Justice complaint. Investigators say Paige Thompson admitted having the data in online postings.
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A screengrab included in the U.S. Department of Justice complaint. Investigators say Paige Thompson admitted having the data in online postings.
U.S. Department of Justice

She lived on Beacon Hill with a roommate accused of having at least 20 firearms and fake grenades.

FBI agents found Thompson living on Beacon Hill, in a house owned by a 66-year-old man named Park Quan.

Quan was convicted in 1983 of planting a bomb under a pickup truck – it didn’t detonate – and in 1991 of having a machine gun as a felon.

Agents say they arrested Quan after finding the cache of weapons in his bedroom. The weapons included an AR-15-style assault rifle, an AK-47-style assault rifle, and scopes, gunpowder and bump stocks, which are illegal under state law and strictly regulated under federal law.

caption: A Google Maps view of the house on Beacon Hill in south Seattle where FBI agents apprehended Paige Thompson. Thompson has been charged with hacking Capital One, a credit card company, and compromising the security of 100 million people.
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A Google Maps view of the house on Beacon Hill in south Seattle where FBI agents apprehended Paige Thompson. Thompson has been charged with hacking Capital One, a credit card company, and compromising the security of 100 million people.
Google Maps

She had a flurry of activity online around the time she is alleged to have hacked Capital One.

Thompson opened a Twitter account in June and became a prolific poster. She encouraged people to join a hacking group on Meetup, a social website. “I’ve been meaning to put together something like a hack night or somethng soon,” she wrote on May 13, according to The New York Times.

caption: A screengrab included in the U.S. Department of Justice complaint. Erratic is Paige Thompson, who has been charged with hacking Capital One, a credit card company.
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A screengrab included in the U.S. Department of Justice complaint. Erratic is Paige Thompson, who has been charged with hacking Capital One, a credit card company.
Department of Justice

On Twitter, Thompson talked about her sick cat, Millie.

On July 4, she wrote, “It has been about a month or two, I think tomorrow I'm going to call in ahead and schedule a euthanasia for my cat. She will only get worse and its tough on her to go through this. I love her so much but I just can't see her go through this misery anymore.”

Her next tweet, the same day, read, “After this is over I'm going to go check into the mental hospital for an indefinite amount of time. I have a whole list of things that will ensure my involuntary confinement from the world. The kind that they can't ignore or brush off onto the crisis clinic. I'm never coming back.”

A veterinarian appears to have come to the house last Tuesday to euthanize Millie, according to Thompson’s tweets.

“Millie passed away about 3:15,” Thompson wrote. “It was one of the most painful and emotionally overwhelming experiences ive had in my life and im very sad she is gone but shes no longer in pain. I loved her so much.”

caption: A photo that Paige Thompson posted to her Twitter page of herself with her cat Millie, who died less than a week before Thompson was arrested for allegedly hacking Capital One. Thompson lived in a house on Beacon Hill at the time of her arrest.
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A photo that Paige Thompson posted to her Twitter page of herself with her cat Millie, who died less than a week before Thompson was arrested for allegedly hacking Capital One. Thompson lived in a house on Beacon Hill at the time of her arrest.
Twitter

Thompson talked about the difficulties of being a woman on hormones.

On July 20, she wrote, “Oh god what have i done, trans, dont give a flying fuck what you say about hormones i have a lot of emotional entropy right now. You can fuck right off, it wasnt always like this for me and theres def a correlation with time of dosage. Its not a bad thing but wow what a mind fuck.”

Thompson wrote mostly about cats and coding, but in her nearly two months on Twitter, she delved into the political. Conservatives like Tucker Carlson of Fox News caught her ire.

So did, on occasion, smaller issues pertaining to the trans rights movement. Replying to a tweet about a woman who was upset that a salon worker would not wax her, Thompson wrote:

“Lets stop calling it the 'wax my balls case' like its an actual thing worthy of any consideration, too. Busines owners and operators should reserve the right to refuse service at their own discretion. Find a ball waxing friendly spa on yelp.”


Thompson remains in federal custody. A hearing is set for Thursday.

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