The US Department of Justice on Thursday ignored federal allegations against British teenager Thalha Zubair, who accused the prosecution of being involved in at least 120 cyber attacks, which includes the US court system and dozens of American companies.
19 -year -old Zubair was arrested at his home in East London on Tuesday, according to A statement By National Crime Agency. He appeared in court on Thursday morning with another teenager, Owen Phool, 18 in London. Both are accused of joining 2024 Cyber Attack Transport Transport for LondonThe government body that oversees the London Public Transit System, resulting in data breech and Efforts to recover one month,
The National Crime Agency said Hack was held responsible for the scattered Spider Hacking Group on the IT network of the London transit system.
Both Zubair and Phool were taken into custody to appear in court on a later date, BBC news per BBC,
Is scattered spider An English speaking group Economically induced cyber criminal, mostly adolescents and young adults, sometimes referred to “Advanced Teens” His skilled and frequent cyber attack. These hackers are known for their ability to hack a large number of companies using relatively simple social engineering techniques, such as pretending to be an employee of the company’s IT Helpdesk, who forgot their password and now need a new.
These hackers are also known for their participation through a nebulus cyber collective along with other hackers. “the Com,” Referring to the cybercrime community, which sometimes crosses into the real world using physical hazards and violence, including swatting.
Federal allegations to target American companies
as part of A separate set of federal allegations Filed in New Jersey, US prosecutors stated that Zubair faced allegations of computer hacking, forced recovery, and money laundering regarding dozens of hacks, seeking that corporate victims were paid more than $ 115 million in ransom payment.
In Its criminal complaint, The FBI said that it seized the server in July 2024, believing that it is run by Zubair, and evidence was found that Zubair was allegedly involved in hacks of at least 120 companies including 47 companies in the United States.
According to the prosecutors, Zubair used social engineering techniques to break into the company network to steal internal data, to encry the victim’s server, then fired the victims to pay the hackers to unlock the files.
One of the aggrieved companies consisted of an important infrastructure company based in New Jersey. The FBI said it found evidence on one of the alleged servers allegedly run by Zubair, including more than a gigabyte stolen data from the important infrastructure company, as well as showing clear evidence of logging history to the history that browsing history browsing history.
Another violation FBI was reportedly pinned to Zubair, including access to the system of US courts.
During January 2025, Zubair and other hackers approached the US courts helpdesk for allegedly gaining access to three user accounts, including a federal magistrate judge to discover information related to “scattered Spider”.
Hackers used one of the hacked accounts to submit an emergency information disclosure request of customer information for an anonymous financial services provider, a general strategy used by these hackers to start user information to think about what they think is a legitimate legal request.
The FBI stated that Zubair’s seized server was hacked to conduct “discoveries” related to American courts and was used to send an emergency request to the financial firm.
Bloomberg First reported in August Scattered Spider Hackers broke with a sealing prosecution of one in the US courts system to search for information related to hackers. Abbre member Scattered spider, Noah Urban.
According to the FBI, Zubair’s server allegedly stored a cryptocurrency wallet about $ 36 million, when it was seized, it is too much for companies that paid ransom, according to the FBI. But the FBI said Zubair allegedly transferred about $ 8.4 million from the wallet as the FBI was taking control of the server.
It is not immediately clear whether the Department of Justice is looking for Zubair’s extradition, and a DOJ spokesman did not immediately comment.
