Teenage suspect in MGM Resorts hack arrested in Britain

Police in the UK have arrested a 17-year-old for his alleged position within the cybercriminal group that introduced MGM Resorts casinos to a standstill final yr in a ransomware assault. 

A press launch from the West Midlands Police mentioned the Regional Organised Crime Unit and the U.Ok.’s Nationwide Crime Company made the arrest of the Walsall resident on Thursday, in coordination with the FBI. 

The arrest is “a part of a worldwide investigation into a big scale cyber hacking group which has focused quite a lot of main firms which incorporates MGM Resorts in America,” they mentioned. 

Though police didn’t identify the group {the teenager} was allegedly related to, the assault on MGM Resorts was carried out by Scattered Spider — also referred to as Octo Tempest, 0ktapus or UNC3944. It price the corporate roughly $100 million and shut down operations throughout a lot of the Las Vegas Strip. 

Bryan Vorndran, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, mentioned within the launch: “The FBI, in coordination with its companions, will proceed to relentlessly pursue malicious actors who goal American firms, regardless of the place they could be situated or how subtle their strategies are.”

MGM Resorts praised its personal response to the incident, saying that its refusal to pay a ransom and determination to close down all of its methods — in addition to its coordination with legislation enforcement — had despatched the message to criminals that “it’s not value it.” 

Scattered Spider has focused greater than 100 organizations since 2022, based on Mandiant, and has just lately been setting its sights on the monetary sector. 

At the least two others with alleged ties to the group have been arrested this yr, together with the suspected ringleader final month in Spain. 

In Could, the FBI’s cyber deputy assistant director, Brett Leatherman, claimed legislation enforcement was closing in on the hackers. 

“We’re working in direction of charging people the place we are able to with felony conduct, on this case, largely across the Laptop Fraud and Abuse Act,” he advised Reuters.

Microsoft mentioned earlier this week that Scattered Spider — an offshoot of a broader group often called The Com — had just lately expanded the forms of ransomware that it deploys.

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