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An American has admitted to sophisticated attacks that bypassed two-factor protection. A member of the Scattered Spider hacker group has pleaded guilty to a case of large-scale cryptocurrency thefts and hacking of corporate systems. Noah Michael Urban, who was arrested in early 2024 , has signed a plea agreement in Florida, where he is accused of fraud and identity theft. Now he faces up to 60 years in prison. According to investigators, 20-year-old Urban was a key member of one of the most aggressive hacker groups in recent years. Scattered Spider became famous for using SIM Swapping, a method that allows you to take control of the victim's phone number and bypass two-factor authentication. It was with this technique that the group gained access to crypto wallets, corporate systems, and documents. Urban and his accomplices operated from August 2022 to March 2023. During this time, according to the prosecution, they managed to steal millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency, as well as penetrate the IT infrastructure of large companies, from where confidential data was stolen. During the search, Urban's digital assets worth $2.89 million, stored on his home computer, were seized. According to the case materials, three defendants were arrested, and the fate of two others remains unknown. The total damage from the group's actions is estimated at between $9.5 million and $25 million. Urban pledged to compensate more than $13 million in favor of more than 30 victims, and also renounced all seized digital funds. Investigators found out that under the pseudonyms "Sosa", "Elijah" and "King Bob", Urban, along with other members of the "community", actively participated in hacking accounts, phishing attacks and using stolen data to gain access to crypto wallets. In one case, he hacked the account of the American media conglomerate AOL, carried out a successful SIM Swap through the AT&T operator and stole about $374 thousand. During interrogations, Urban confirmed that he received cryptocurrency exclusively through criminal activity as part of Scattered Spider. Over $2.6 million was stolen from 16 victims alone. According to his own estimates, between January 2021 and March 2023, he personally earned several million dollars and participated in thefts of an even larger amount. Journalists have also previously linked Urban to attacks on famous musicians and leaks of unreleased albums. According to the indictment, he collaborated with Ahmed Hossam Elbadewi, Evans Osiebo, Joel Evans, Tyler Buchanan and others. The victims were companies in the fields of entertainment, telecommunications, cloud technologies and cryptocurrency services. Scattered Spider was behind the 2023 attacks on MGM and Caesars , as well as hacks of Coinbase, Twilio, Mailchimp, LastPass, Riot Games, and Reddit. According to
Group-IB, the group's recent phishing campaign resulted in the compromise of almost 10,000 accounts from 136 organizations.
US authorities emphasize: Scattered Spider members are native English speakers. This gave them an advantage in social engineering. They successfully used adversary-in-the-middle schemes and attacked via SMS phishing, making them one of the most dangerous financially motivated groups. Microsoft previously named Scattered Spider one of the main threats to companies around the world.
Group-IB, the group's recent phishing campaign resulted in the compromise of almost 10,000 accounts from 136 organizations.
US authorities emphasize: Scattered Spider members are native English speakers. This gave them an advantage in social engineering. They successfully used adversary-in-the-middle schemes and attacked via SMS phishing, making them one of the most dangerous financially motivated groups. Microsoft previously named Scattered Spider one of the main threats to companies around the world.