Thousands of intimate photos seized in hacking investigation of former Michigan football coach Matt Weiss
Thousands of personal photos have been seized from former University of Michigan quarterbacks coach Matt Weiss, who is accused of hacking into online accounts belonging to thousands of student-athletes, according to court documents.
Attorneys representing some of the student-athletes filed a motion on Tuesday requesting the court to expedite the collection of evidence in the case. They are seeking all domain names registered to Weiss and websites where the victims' photos may have been profiled.
They are also seeking information on employees of the software company Keffer Keffer Development Services who worked with U of M and how Weiss allegedly gained unauthorized access to the photos.
"The focus now must be to determine quickly the extent of the harm and what needs to be done to stop further harm. Plaintiffs need to learn what exactly is known about their personal information that has been compromised," according to the motion. "Plaintiffs need details about what is known and unknown, how electronic intrusions and extractions occurred, and what harm has already happened."
Weiss, who served on Michigan's football coaching staff in 2021 and 2022, was charged with 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft. He entered a not guilty plea. He was fired in January 2023 amid an investigation by university police into possible computer-access crimes at a football building.
In the last month, two lawsuits have been filed by victims who accused Weiss of hacking into several accounts, including social media, email, cloud storage, and downloading intimate photos and videos between 2015 and 2023. The lawsuits also alleged that the university and Keffer Development Services failed to monitor Weiss' activity.
Attorneys say more than 150,000 athletes across the country were impacted, with more than 3,000 of them at the University of Michigan.
"We are committed to protecting all individuals affected by this breach and demanding accountability from both Matthew Weiss and the University of Michigan," said attorney Parker Stinar with the Stinar Gould Greico and Hensley law firm. "The urgency of this situation cannot be overstated, and we will continue to fight for the victims who deserve justice."
Court documents included an email from the Justice Department's Mega Victim Case Assistance Program (MCAP) that was sent to a victim. The email stated that investigators uncovered images and videos on Weiss' electronic devices and cloud storage, some of which showed some victims "engaged in explicit sexual acts."
Other documents included a letter from U of M to victims stating that officials discovered a "threat actor manipulated a flaw in self-service password recovery to change your password and gain access to your U-M Google account."
"The University of Michigan continues to fail and betray their current and former female athletes by not notifying them that a University of Michigan 'flaw' in their computer network led to their information being compromised," Stinar said in a statement. "Young current or former female student-athletes across the country have had their personal and intimate information stolen, and they deserve to know immediately what was compromised so they can take the appropriate steps to protect themselves and secure their identities."
Prior to U of M, Weiss was on the Baltimore Ravens coaching staff from 2009 to 2020. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison on each count of unauthorized access to computers and two years on each count of aggravated identity theft.
