West Midlands Police arrested a Walsall resident suspected of targeting large organizations with ransomware.
The authorities netted the 17-year-old on July 18th after coordinating with the UK’s National Crime Agency(NCA) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
According to the Regional Organised Crime Unit for the West Midlands (ROCUWM), the attacker was taken into custody on suspicion of Blackmail and Computer Misuse Act violations. An unnamed number of “digital devices” were also collected during the arrest.
Authorities claim the arrest is part of a global investigation into a large-scale cyber hacking community that has targeted several major companies, including MGM Resorts in America.
“These cyber groups have targeted well known organisations with ransomware and they have successfully targeted multiple victims around the world taking from them significant amounts of money. We want to send out a clear message that we will find you. It’s simply not worth it,” Detective Inspector Hinesh Mehta, Cyber Crime Unit Manager at ROCUWM, said.
Last year, two Las Vegas strip behemoths, MGM and Caesars, fell victim to a hacker attack. MGM was forced to shut down systems across all of its 31 resorts, while Caesars tried avoiding a similar fate by paying attackers millions of dollars.
Hacker groups ALPHV and Scattered Spider were supposedly behind the attacks.
In mid-June, a 22-year-old UK national was arrested in Spain, with researchers believing the hacker was intimately involved in the MGM Resorts International cyberattack.
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