Member of The Dark Overlord Hacker Group Caught and Charged For Cybercrime

By Kayla Deruiter on October 28, 2020

Executive Summary:

The Dark Overlord hacking group is known for hacking multiple organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom (U.K.) in demand for ransom. It is unknown how many people reside within this hacking group and the identities of the individuals. Although one member, Nathan Wyatt, a U.K. citizen was extradited to the U.S. on Dec. 18, 2019 and charged with identity theft, threatening the damage of a protected computer, and conspiracy. Wyatt pled guilty to the charges and apologized, while also complying and giving the information of what he had been doing while working with that group. Wyatt confessed to being a member since 2016. The Dark Overlord takes responsibility for multiple other cybercrimes such as: hacking three healthcare organizations and selling patient records on the dark web, hacking Netflix and leaking episodes of a popular series, and selling patient records to unknown healthcare insurance providers.

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Details:

Nathan Wyatt was convicted to five years in prison and to pay over $1 million in restitution to the victims. He was skilled in technology and used his skills to attack computer networks of U.S. companies [2]. The targeted companies were mostly healthcare providers and accounting firms. Wyatt has stolen confidential data from these targeted companies, to include personal data and patient medical records [1]. He would then use the stolen information as blackmail for ransom ranging from $75,000 to $350,000 to be paid in Bitcoin, but none of the companies paid the ransom [2]. In a 2017 report, it states that Wyatt used email and telephone to communicate the messages to blackmail these companies, which is how he was caught because an email linked back to him [3]. He was first arrested in the U.K. back in 2017, then extradited to the U.S. where he was charged. The Justice Department of the U.S. got a confession from Wyatt about the conspiracy to create and validate payment and implicit private network accounts that was used by the group to threaten and derive information from the targeted companies [2].

Potential Impacts:

The Dark Overlord hacking group is still out there constantly making threats and exploiting companies for classified data. It is unknown what individuals are in this group and how large they are, therefore, it is unrealistic to assume that these cyber criminals will be caught any time soon without slipping up the way Wyatt did. It seems like this group works for ransom and money benefits, targeting organizations that hold a lot of classified data and would possibly pay to retrieve that information back. Healthcare and financial organizations should be knowledgeable of this group and their attack methods so that they could refrain from becoming the next victim.

Significance:

The U.S. has been working with the U.K. to charge and extradite Nathan Wyatt to the states to confront the crimes he had committed. This is significant because we are working with other countries to bring down these hackers, and be able to show that even in another country an individual can be charged and tried within the U.S. It is important to show the consequences of someone who commits a crime, so that these hackers do not think they are safe and can get away with it. Like stated earlier, none of the companies complied with the hackers and sent any money for ransom. Instead it was reported to the authorities where they were able to track and identify one of the group members responsible. I think it is important not to give into these threats, or they will not stop.

Sources:

  1. B. N. (2020, September 24). The Dark Overlord Group Hacker Sentenced to Five Years in Prison. Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://cybersecuritynews.com/the-dark-overlord-group/

  1. Dark Overlord hacker pleads guilty. (2020, September 22). Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54247527

  1. Paganini, P. (2019, December 19). Member of the Dark Overlord hacker Group extradited to the US. Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/95383/cyber-crime/dark-overlord-hacker-extradited.html