Alleged Scattered Spider Hacker Arrested in Finland
Alleged Scattered Spider Hacker Arrested in Finland 🚨
A teenager has been arrested for alleged involvement with the Scattered Spider hacking group, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced. Peter Stokes, 19, was arrested in Finland in April and extradited to the US following an Interpol Red Notice. He has been charged with computer intrusion, conspiracy, and fraud, which the DOJ stated came after “years of work”. Stokes, a dual US-Estonian national, appeared in federal court in Chicago on Tuesday and was ordered to remain in custody.
Both the FBI - working in Copenhagen and Chicago - and Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation collaborated on the operation.
Scattered Spider has been implicated in hacks resulting in over $100 million (£75 million) in ransom payments, according to the DOJ. The complaint alleges that, among other offenses, Stokes and other co-conspirators made a ransom demand of around $8 million in cryptocurrency to a luxury jewelry retailer after stealing its data last year. No ransom was paid after the unnamed company “evicted” the hackers, the DOJ reported. However, it added that the jewelry company lost at least $2 million due to business disruption, investigation, and mitigation of the threat.
Additionally, the charges come after two young men pleaded guilty to offenses connected to the £39 million 2024 Transport for London cyber-attack, which the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) believed was conducted by the group. The charges against Stokes also follow two men pleading guilty last month to offenses related to a massive cyber attack on Transport for London in 2024. Investigators from the NCA stated they believed the 2024 “network intrusion” - in which around 10 million people’s data was stolen - was carried out by Scattered Spider. The NCA informed the BBC that Scattered Spider was also a key part of their investigation into cyber attacks on British retailers Co-op and M&S last year. The group’s members are thought to be young, native English speakers from the US and UK.