Missouri Man Arrested After Hacking Multiple Businesses and Pitching Himself as a Security Expert
In a bizarre and seemingly straight out of a cyber-thriller movie, Nicholas Michael Kloster, a 29-year-old man from Missouri, has been arrested after allegedly hacking into several businesses and then attempting to sell them his “security services.” Kloster now faces federal charges for accessing protected computers and related crimes, following an investigation by the FBI and the Kansas City Police Department.
The sequence of events began when Kloster, armed with apparent confidence, accessed the computer systems of a health club in the area. Once inside, he proceeded to email the business owner, offering his services as a self-proclaimed security expert, even though he had no formal credentials to back up the offer. But the audacity didn’t stop there. In an even more brazen move, Kloster took to social media to post a screenshot showing himself remotely controlling the health club’s security cameras. The post read, “How to get a company to use your computer service,” adding a level of mockery to his actions.
Kloster’s ability to exploit this situation only escalated from there. He allegedly reduced his gym membership fee to a mere $1 per month, likely in an attempt to ingratiate himself further into the business. But he didn’t stop at financial manipulation—Kloster also removed his own photo from the health club’s database, and in an even more flagrant act of theft, he took a staff nametag for himself.
However, the extent of Kloster’s illegal actions was not confined to just one business. According to prosecutors, he also allegedly broke into a nonprofit organization, gaining unauthorized access to restricted areas by physically going to the building, where he loaded a boot disk onto one of the organization’s systems. From there, Kloster reportedly reset user passwords and installed a VPN, actions that caused the nonprofit to suffer over $5,000 in damages.
But perhaps the most puzzling—and easily traceable—crime Kloster committed was his use of his employer’s company credit card to make personal purchases. Among these was a thumb drive, which was advertised as a tool for hacking into vulnerable computers. The drive itself, purchased for personal use, was ironically marketed as a tool to penetrate systems, an item that ultimately tied Kloster’s activities to his employer, putting a spotlight on his increasingly reckless behavior.
It’s clear from Kloster’s actions that he believed his cyber exploits were some sort of grand heist, akin to the digital hacking antics seen in Hollywood thrillers. However, in the real world, this kind of behavior doesn’t go unnoticed. Instead of gaining the trust of businesses and clients, Kloster’s audacious acts caught the attention of authorities. While his attempts to “secure” businesses ended with his arrest, his saga serves as a cautionary tale about the line between cybersecurity and cybercrime, a line that Kloster clearly crossed with reckless abandon.
