The US authorities have arrested a teen believed to be affiliated with the Scattered Spider hacker group. The cybercrime organization gained significant notoriety when its members breached high-profile casino operators in a huge ransomware breach.
Another Member Has Been Arrested
According to Bloomberg, the authorities in California had recently arrested a young man believed to be affiliated with the group. Remington Ogletree, 19, was charged with wire fraud and is believed to have helped Scattered Spider with their phishing attempts.
The charges related to alleged crimes that took place between October 2023 and May 2024, officials said.
Ogletree’s involvement in the group’s earlier activities has not yet been confirmed, Bloomberg clarified. However, he isn’t the first teen arrested in relation to the hacker group. Earlier this year, the FBI took a 17-year-old from Walsall, UK, into custody, believing him to have participated in the attacks on MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment.
The Scattered Spider group is believed to be primarily comprised of young but skilled tech specialists. The alleged head of the MGM breach was arrested in Spain last year and was only 22-years-old.
MGM and Caesars Suffered Great Breaches
The Scattered Spider group was behind the attacks on several high-profile companies, including the casino and hospitality giants MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment. Both attacks caused millions of dollars in damages and disrupted the operators’ operations.
MGM alone had to shut down its online systems for a time while it dealt with the problem. To make matters worse, the company then had to deal with disgruntled patrons who were unhappy that their data got leaked and launched lawsuits against MGM.
The hackers also launched a cyberattack on the financial sector earlier this year, targeting banks and insurance companies.
Technology Can Be Exploited by Malicious Parties
In more recent news, IGT, one of the world’s biggest gaming content developers, recently became the victim of a cybersecurity incident and launched an investigation into the matter.
In another case, the Chinese hackers’ group APT41 allegedly targeted the gambling industry in a complex cyberattack.
Russian hackers, on the other hand, have reportedly been leveraging the power of technology to develop unbeatable poker bots that can take down even the best of players.
