A teenager has been arrested for alleged involvement with the Scattered Spider hacking group, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said.<\/b><\/p>\n
Peter Stokes, 19, was arrested in Finland in April and extradited to the US following an Interpol Red Notice.<\/p>\n
He has been charged with computer intrusion, conspiracy and fraud, which the DoJ said came after “years of work”.<\/p>\n
Scattered Spider has been involved in hacks resulting in more than $100m (\u00a375m) in ransom payments, according to the DoJ.<\/p>\n
The charges come after\u00a0two young men pleaded guilty<\/a>\u00a0to offences connected to the \u00a339m 2024 Transport for London cyber-attack, which the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) believed was conducted by the group.<\/p>\n Stokes, a dual US-Estonian national, appeared in federal court in Chicago on Tuesday and was ordered to remain in custody.<\/p>\n The complaint alleges that, among other offences, he and other co-conspirators made a ransom demand of around $8m in cryptocurrency to a luxury jewellery retailer after stealing its data last year.<\/p>\n No ransom was paid after the unnamed company “evicted” the hackers, the DoJ said.<\/p>\n However, it added, the jewellery company lost at least $2m due to business disruption, investigation and mitigation of the threat.<\/p>\n Both the FBI – working in Copenhagen and Chicago – and Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation worked on the operation.<\/p>\n The charges against Stokes come after two men pleaded guilty last month to offences in connection with a massive cyber attack on Transport for London in 2024.<\/p>\n Investigators from the NCA said they believed the 2024 “network intrusion” – in\u00a0which around 10 million people’s data was stolen<\/a>\u00a0– was carried out by Scattered Spider.<\/p>\n The NCA told the BBC Scattered Spider was also a key part of their investigation into cyber attacks on British retailers Co-op and M&S last year.<\/p>\n The group’s members are thought to be young, native English speakers from the US and UK.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"