Scattered Spider hacker gets 10 years in federal US prison

Not only will the infamous hacker King Bob spend a decade behind bars, he will also have to cough up $13 million in restitution to victims of his crimes.

Noah Michael Urban, better known by a nickname referring to the Minions movie, King Bob, was sentenced to ten years behind bars after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and wire fraud.

The 20-year-old was linked with the notorious Scattered Spider hacking collective, which gained notoriety after widely publicized attacks against access management provider Okta and major Las Vegas casinos MGM and Caesars.

The hacking group was known for its use of SIM swapping tactics, where attackers convince mobile carriers to transfer mobile phone numbers to a SIM card they control. This type of attack relies heavily on social engineering and requires attackers to be very manipulative.

Urban was tried for crimes he committed in Florida and California. The Florida charges accused the hacker of stealing at least $800,000 in crypto, while California prosecutors said that King Bob was running a scheme that targeted companies via text messages.

Scattered Spider utilized such tactics to penetrate Las Vegas hotels, later causing millions in damages. Meanwhile, cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs claims that Urban was active in a SIM-swapping gang Star Fraud, linked with the Las Vegas attacks.

Caesars was reported to have paid Scattered Spider a $15 million ransom demand to keep its operation going in the wake of the attack, as opposed to MGM which refused to pay, and was subsequently paralyzed for weeks.

Researchers believe that Urban was one of the core members of Scattered Spider before getting arrested in early 2024. According to researchers at Bitdefender, King Bob, who also went by the moniker Sosa, leaked unreleased songs from famous artists.

Urban likely broke into music industry executives’ accounts via SIM swapping attacks, which allowed him to access unreleased content from Ariana Grande, Lil Uzi Vert, and Playboi Carti.

Urban likely broke into music industry executives’ accounts via SIM swapping attacks, which allowed him to access unreleased content from Ariana Grande, Lil Uzi Vert, and Playboi Carti.

Federal prosecutors requested that Urban be sentenced to eight years for his crimes, while the defence wanted to settle for a five year term, according to Florida news outlet News4ja. However, a federal judge opted for a 120 month punishment, with three years of supervised release.

Interestingly, Krebs writes that Urban believes the elevated penalty was caused by another Scattered Spider member, who hacked the judge’s work email account and stole his sealed indictment.

Urban is not the only member of the hacker group to be nabbed by the feds. Three other US residents, Ahmed Hossam Eldin Elbadawy, Evans Onyeaka Osiebo, and Joel Martin Evans, as well as one UK resident, Tyler Robert Buchanan, face allegations of wire fraud, conspiracy, and aggravated identity theft.

However, the arrests do not appear to have stopped Scattered Spider from continuing its operations. The gang was credited for the May 2025 attack on some of the UK’s biggest retailers, Marks & Spencer, Co-op, and Harrods.