Free Republic

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, December 18, 2019 Member of “The Dark Overlord” Hacking Group Extradited From United Kingdom to Face Charges in St. Louis Defendant Conspired to Steal Sensitive Personally Identifying Information from Victim Companies and Release those Records on Criminal Marketplaces unless Victims Paid Bitcoin Ransoms A United Kingdom national appeared today in federal court on charges of aggravated identity theft, threatening to damage a protected computer, and conspiring to commit those and other computer fraud offenses, related to his role in a computer hacking collective known as “The Dark Overlord,”...

Netflix isn't alone: Agencies and others are balancing demands for money against the fears of stolen data ending up online. Phones are the lifeblood of a talent agency like UTA, but on April 11, its IT department discovered an intruder lurking in the voicemail system and computer network and quickly decided to shut them down, sending agents to conduct business on their iPads. Soon thereafter a demand from a hacker arrived: Pay a ransom or watch the agency's most confidential data get posted online. It turns out UTA was lucky — an outside cybersecurity firm was brought in and, after...