A Santa Clarita man has agreed to plead guilty to hacking the personal computer of an employee of The Walt Disney Company last year, obtaining login information and using that information to illegally download confidential data from the Burbank-based mass media and entertainment conglomerate via the employee’s Slack online communications account.

Ryan Mitchell Kramer, 25, has agreed to plead guilty to an information charging him with one count of accessing a computer and obtaining information and one count of threatening to damage a protected computer.

In addition to the information, prosecutors filed a plea agreement in which Kramer agreed to plead guilty to the two felony charges, which each carry a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.

Kramer is expected to make his initial appearance in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles in the coming weeks.

According to his plea agreement, in early 2024, Kramer posted a computer program on various online platforms, including GitHub, that purported to be computer program that could be used to create A.I.-generated art. In fact, the program contained a malicious file that enabled Kramer to gain access to victims’ computers.

Sometime in April and May of 2024, a victim downloaded the malicious file Kramer posted online, giving Kramer access to the victim’s personal computer, including an online account where the victim stored login credentials and passwords for the victim’s personal and work accounts.

After gaining unauthorized access to the victim’s computer and online accounts, Kramer accessed a Slack online communications account that the victim used as a Disney employee, gaining access to non-public Disney Slack channels. In May 2024, Kramer downloaded approximately 1.1 terabytes of confidential data from thousands of Disney Slack channels.

In July 2024, Kramer contacted the victim via email and the online messaging platform Discord, pretending to be a member of a fake Russia-based hacktivist group called “NullBulge.” The emails and Discord message contained threats to leak the victim’s personal information and Disney’s Slack data.

On July 12, 2024, after the victim did not respond to Kramer’s threats, Kramer publicly released the stolen Disney Slack files, as well as the victim’s bank, medical and personal information on multiple online platforms.

Kramer admitted in his plea agreement that, in addition to the victim, at least two other victims downloaded Kramer’s malicious file and that Kramer was able to gain unauthorized access to their computers and accounts.

The FBI is investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Lauren Restrepo and Maxwell Coll, both of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section, are prosecuting this case.