The Dark Overlord hacking group has continued to terrorize several high-profile companies such as Disney and Netflix.
In a new development, Nathan Francis Wyatt (member of this group was recently convicted. Nathan was sentenced to 5 years in prison and has to pay a 1.5 million dollar fine.
Is he just a scapegoat though?
It seems the hacker’s only job was to contact victims over the phone and demand ransom.
The rest of the hacking group are nowhere to be found. Are the authorities targeting Nathan to save face?
Read on to find out more.
Call Center Operative or Guilty Hacker?
According to authorities, U.K national Wyatt’s job was to contact victims and demand ransom.
His phone number was traced and he was caught in 2017.
Nathan was then extradited to the USA in 2019 and has recently pleaded guilty to charges of identity theft and computer fraud.
The hacker apologized and said that “He never wants to see a computer in his life.”
Regardless, he was fined a full $1.5 million and sentenced to five years in prison.
Does the amount not seem extraordinarily large for only one member of a much larger group?
Nathan was a kind of call-center operative for hackers.
Who are the real masterminds behind The Dark Overlords?
Are the authorities victimizing Nathan to cover up their inability to find them?
The Real Hackers Remain At Large
Nathan is only one member of The Dark Overlords (TDO).
He is not entirely innocent, however. He was previously investigated for hacking into Pippa Middleton’s iCloud account.
Although we know he is involved with TDO, most of the other members of the group are unknown to the authorities
There are very few leads. In 2018, Serbian authorities may have arrested another member of the group.
However, they only shared the man’s initials (S.S) and birth year – 1980 – which made tracking the case nearly impossible.
Nathan “admits” his group extracted confidential information from companies. They would then demand ransom payments between $75,000 and $350,000.
None of the organizations paid up, but Nathan was fined a million pounds for his phone calls.
A Group With a Dark History
The Dark Overlords have a long history of cybercrime. They are responsible for several hacking incidents such as:
- Selling the healthcare records of more than 650,000 patients from healthcare organizations.
- Selling over 9 million patient records from an insurance provider.
- Hacking Netflix and releasing episodes of shows as “OINTB.”
- Hacking the company “Gorilla Glue.”
- Hacking several real estate and healthcare companies such as Caribbean Island Properties and PcWorks
TDO usually hacks these companies and then demands a ransom
In this case, Assistant US Attorney General says that “Nathan used technical skills to prey on the confidential information of American citizens and exploit the financial and medical records for his own gain.”
This is in contrast to other reports where his role was said to be the person who contacted victims over the phone to demand a ransom.
Summary
Although Nathan Francis Wyatt was convicted, other operatives of The Dark Overlord remain loose.
The typical Internet hacker almost never gets caught. In such a scenario, all that most organizations can do is to take adequate precautions.
You’ll need the help of experts to secure your systems against cybercrime.
At MyItGuy, our experienced professionals can help. Contact our team for dedicated IT Security Services today.