hacking
US reportedly charges Scattered Spider hacker arrested in Finland
A 19-year-old dual United States and Estonian citizen arrested in Finland earlier this month faces federal charges in the U.S. alleging he was a prolific member of the notorious Scattered Spider hacking collective. According to temporarily unsealed court records obtained by the Chicago Tribune, the suspect (who used the online alias “Bouquet”) helped extort millions of dollars […]
British Scattered Spider hacker pleads guilty to crypto theft charges
A British man, believed to be the leader of the Scattered Spider cybercrime collective, has pleaded guilty in the United States to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. In November 2024, U.S. prosecutors accused 24-year-old Tyler Robert Buchanan and four other suspects of stealing at least $8 million in cryptocurrency after hacking at least a dozen companies […]
Man gets 30 months for selling thousands of hacked DraftKings accounts
23-year-old Kamerin Stokes of Memphis, Tennessee, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling access to tens of thousands of hacked DraftKings accounts. According to court documents, the accounts were hijacked by Nathan Austad (aka Snoopy) with the help of Joseph Garrison (a third accomplice charged in May 2023) in a massive November 2022 credential-stuffing attack that compromised nearly 68,000 DraftKings accounts. U.S. prosecutors […]
Microsoft pays $2.3M for cloud and AI flaws at Zero Day Quest
Microsoft has awarded $2.3 million to security researchers after receiving nearly 700 submissions during this year’s Zero Day Quest hacking contest. Tom Gallagher, Vice President of Engineering at Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), said that over 80 flaws found during the live event at Microsoft’s Redmond campus were high-impact cloud and AI security vulnerabilities. “During the […]
Yanluowang ransomware access broker gets 81 months in prison
A Russian national was sentenced to nearly 7 years in prison after pleading guilty to acting as an initial access broker (IAB) for Yanluowang ransomware attacks. As 26-year-old Aleksey Olegovich Volkov (also known online as “chubaka.kor” and “nets”) admitted in his November guilty plea, he targeted at least eight companies across the United States between July […]
Ex-L3Harris exec jailed for selling zero-days to Russian exploit broker
The former head of Trenchant, a specialized U.S. defense contractor unit, was sentenced Tuesday to more than seven years in federal prison for stealing and selling zero-day exploits to a Russian broker whose clients include the Russian government. 39-year-old Australian national Peter Williams served as the general manager of Trenchant, a cybersecurity unit of defense […]
Nigerian man gets eight years in prison for hacking tax firms
A Nigerian national was sentenced to eight years in prison for hacking multiple tax preparation firms in Massachusetts and filing fraudulent tax returns seeking over $8.1 million in refunds. 37-year-old Matthew Abiodun Akande was arrested in October 2024 at London’s Heathrow Airport and extradited to the United States in March 2025. He was indicted by a federal […]
Texas sues TP-Link over Chinese hacking risks, user deception
Texas sued networking giant TP-Link Systems, accusing the company of deceptively marketing its routers as secure while allowing Chinese state-backed hackers to exploit firmware vulnerabilities and access users’ devices. The lawsuit follows an investigation launched in October and claims that TP-Link misled buyers by labeling its products “Made in Vietnam” while sourcing nearly all components from China. According […]
Man pleads guilty to hacking nearly 600 women’s Snapchat accounts
An Illinois man pleaded guilty to hacking nearly 600 women’s Snapchat accounts to steal nude photos that he kept, sold, or traded online, including accounts he compromised at the request of a former university track coach who was later convicted of sextortion. 26-year-old defendant Kyle Svara admitted in federal court in Boston to phishing access […]
Hackers get $1,047,000 for 76 zero-days at Pwn2Own Automotive 2026
Pwn2Own Automotive 2026 has ended with security researchers earning $1,047,000 after exploiting 76 zero-day vulnerabilities between January 21 and January 23. The Pwn2Own Automotive hacking competition focuses on automotive technologies and took place this week in Tokyo, Japan, during the Automotive World auto conference. Throughout the contest, the hackers targeted fully patched in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems, electric […]