Two UK teenagers charged in connection to Scattered Spider ransomware assaults

Federal prosecutors charged a UK teenager with conspiracy to commit pc fraud and different crimes in reference to the community intrusions of 47 US firms that generated greater than $115 million in ransomware funds over a three-year span.

A felony criticism unsealed on Thursday (PDF) mentioned that Thalha Jubair, 19, of London, was a part of Scattered Spider, the title of an English-language-speaking group that has breached the networks of scores of firms worldwide. After acquiring information, the group demanded that the victims pay hefty ransoms or see their confidential information revealed or offered.

Bitcoin paid by victims recovered

The unsealing of the doc, filed in US District Court docket of the District of New Jersey, got here the identical day Jubair and one other alleged Scattered Spider member—Owen Flowers, 18, from Walsall, West Midlands—had been charged by UK prosecutors in reference to final 12 months’s cyberattack on Transport for London. The company, which oversees London’s public transit system, confronted a monthslong restoration effort on account of the breach.

Each males had been arrested at their properties on Thursday and appeared later within the day at Westminster Magistrates Court docket, the place they had been remanded to look in Crown Court docket on October 16, Britain’s Nationwide Crime Company mentioned. Flowers was beforehand arrested in reference to the Transport for London assault in September 2024 and later launched. NCA prosecutors mentioned that apart from the assault on the transit company, Flowers and different conspirators had been chargeable for a cyberattack on SSM Well being Care and trying to breach Sutter Well being, each of that are positioned within the US. Jubair was additionally charged with offenses associated to his refusal to show over PIN codes and passwords for gadgets seized from him.