US prosecutors accuse five members of 'Scattered Spider' of stealing at least $11 million in cryptocurrency through hacker attacks

According to a complaint filed on Wednesday, US prosecutors accused five members of the ‘Scattered Spider’ group of launching hacker attacks against dozens of companies and individuals, resulting in the theft of sensitive data and at least $11 million in cryptocurrency. Federal prosecutors in California said the defendants used various fraudulent means, including SMS phishing and SIM card swapping, to obtain legitimate credentials from employees, in order to gain unauthorized access to their accounts and company networks from late 2021 to spring 2023. US authorities said the defendants used this access to steal confidential data and identify and access individuals’ cryptocurrency accounts and wallets. Prosecutors said that approximately $4 million of the stolen cryptocurrency has been recovered, and investigators are still calculating the total value involved in the data theft. Scattered Spider is known to be a decentralized organization that often uses social engineering techniques to deceive IT employees into accessing company networks, with some members located in the US and UK. (Bloomberg)