Vastaamo hacker Aleksanteri Kivimäki appeals conviction to Supreme Court

The man convicted of Finland’s largest data breach, Aleksanteri Kivimäki, will appeal his sentence to the Supreme Court, his lawyer confirmed to national broadcaster Yle on Thursday.

Kivimäki’s defence attorney, Peter Jaari, stated that the appeal for leave to challenge the ruling will be filed by Monday, the final day of the appeal period. Jaari declined to specify the grounds for the appeal but confirmed that Kivimäki seeks either the overturning or reduction of his sentence.

In late February, the Helsinki Court of Appeal sentenced Kivimäki to six years and 11 months in prison for the 2020 cyberattack on psychotherapy clinic Vastaamo, where he stole and published the personal data of roughly 33,000 patients. The appeals court increased his original district court sentence of six years and three months.

Despite the pending appeal, the ruling must be enforced, meaning Kivimäki will return to prison. He faces at least five more months behind bars, or nearly a full year if he evades serving the sentence. Jaari told Yle he does not know Kivimäki’s current whereabouts or whether he intends to surrender voluntarily.

The Vastaamo breach remains the largest criminal case in Finnish history by number of victims. Kivimäki was found guilty of aggravated data breach, over 9,200 counts of aggravated violation of privacy, nearly 21,000 counts of attempted aggravated extortion, and 20 counts of aggravated extortion after hacking the clinic’s systems and demanding ransom from both the company and its patients.