Cybersecurity Guru or Just a Discount Gym Creep? Hacker Pleads Guilty After Selling Services With a Side of Felony

A Kansas City man has pleaded guilty to hacking multiple organizations in a desperate stunt to promote his own cybersecurity services.

Nicholas Michael Kloster, 32, faces up to five years in prison after admitting to unauthorized computer access, data theft, and causing reckless damage to protected systems.

Court filings revealed that Kloster’s “campaign” included sneaking into a gym, remotely hijacking its security cameras, slashing his own membership fee to $1, and deleting his profile photo.

He later emailed the gym’s owners, proudly confessing to his exploits and offering his services like a twisted tech Robin Hood—minus the ethics or skill.

Weeks later, he pulled a similar stunt at a nonprofit by resetting user passwords and installing VPN software, clearly planning for a return engagement.

Prior to the hacks, he used his employer’s credit card to buy a hacking thumb drive, leading to his termination and the start of his side hustle in cybercrime.

Kloster now faces a $250,000 fine, three years of supervised release, and must cough up restitution for the chaos he caused—all to promote a career he may now have plenty of time to rethink from a prison cell.