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A third alleged member of the Scattered Spider hacking collective has been arrested after he surrendered himself to authorities in Las Vegas.
The male teenager, who has not been publicly named, surrendered himself to the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center.
He is currently facing one count of extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, one count of unlawful acts regarding computers, and three counts of obtaining and using personal identifying information of another person to harm or impersonate a person.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has said that the teenager will face the charges as an adult.
Law enforcement has said that the teenage hacker is connected to the Scattered Spider hacking collective and is a suspect in the cyber attacks on Las Vegas casinos.
“Between August 2023 and October 2023, multiple Las Vegas casino properties became the targets of sophisticated network intrusions, which were attributed to an organised cyber threat-actor group known by several names to include ‘Scattered Spider’, ‘Octo Tempest’, ‘UNC3944’, and/or ‘0ktapus’,” law enforcement said.
While originally claimed by the ALPHV ransomware organisation, the FBI and CISA said that Scattered Spider was also involved in the breach of two major Las Vegas casinos, Caesars and MGM Resorts.
The latest arrest follows two made by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) last week, both of whom are believed to be Scattered Spider members.
Thalha Jubair, 19, and Owen Flowers, 18, were arrested earlier this week in their homes jointly by London Police and the NCA for their alleged participation in a hack of Transport for London (TFL).
Transport for London disclosed on 2 September 2024 that it had suffered a cyber attack, which it later revealed led to limited system access and commuter data being exposed.
That same month, the NCA arrested Flowers, who was 17 at the time, for alleged breaches of the Computer Misuse Act.
The 2024 arrest led to the discovery that Flowers was also involved in cyber attacks against US healthcare companies, according to the NCA. Flowers has also been charged with “conspiring with others to infiltrate and damage” the networks of two healthcare organisations, SSM Health in Missouri and Sutter Health in California.
Jubair, who was arrested by the NCA for the first time last week, was also identified as having been involved in previous cyber attacks targeting US organisations, according to a Justice Department unsealed criminal complaint.
The complaint charged Jubair with participation in cyber criminal activity that impacted at least 47 US victims, including “a US-based critical infrastructure company and the US courts”. Ransom payments for these totalled US$115 million.
Now, Jubair and Flowers face charges under the same act of “conspiring together to commit unauthorised acts” against Transport for London.
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