British Hacker Accused of Blackmailing healthcare Firms Extradited to U.S.

A British man suspected to be a member of ‘The Dark
Overlord,’ an infamous international hacking group, has finally
been extradited to the United States after being held for over two
years in the United Kingdom.

Nathan Francis Wyatt, 39, appeared in federal court in
St. Louis, Missouri, on Wednesday to face charges related to his
role in hacking healthcare and accounting companies in the U.S. and
then threatening to publish stolen information unless victims paid
a ransom in Bitcoin.

According to a court indictment unsealed yesterday, Wyatt faces
one count of conspiracy, two counts of aggravated identity theft
and three counts of threatening to damage a protected
computer.

However, the suspect has not yet pledged guilty to any of the
charges in the U.S. federal court, where he appeared after fighting
for 11 months to avoid being extradited from Britain.

Cyber Attacks by The Dark Overlord Group

British police first arrested Wyatt in September 2016 during an
investigation into the hacking of an iCloud account belonging to
Pippa Middleton, the younger sister of the British royal family
member Duchess of Cambridge, and stealing 3,000 images of her.

Though he was released in that case without charge due to lack
of evidence, Wyatt was again arrested in September 2017 over
hacking companies, credit card fraud, and blackmail schemes.

The indictment does not name the companies allegedly attacked by
The Dark Overlord hacking group between February 2016 and June 2017
but says the victims include multiple healthcare providers and
accounting firms in Missouri, Illinois, and Georgia states.

However, the Dark Overload is the same hacking crew that
previously has been attributed to a number of hacking attacks,
including leaking 10 unreleased episodes of the 5th season of
‘Orange Is The New
Black^[1]‘ series from Netflix and
hacking Gorilla
Glue^[2], Little Red
Door^[3] cancer service
agency, among others.

The Dark Overlord Threatened Victims and their Relatives

According to the press
release^[4] published by the Justice
Department, Wyatt created and operated the email and phone accounts
to threaten the compromised organizations to extort money, and in
case victims refused to pay, Wyatt harassed and threatened their
relatives.

Among other threatening messages the defendant sent to the victims,
the indictment accused Wyatt of sending threatening text messages
to the daughter of one of the owners of the Farmington company,
asking her, “hi … you look peaceful … by the way did your daddy
tell you he refused to pay us when we stole his company
files?”

The hacking group members also threatened to call the public
accountants’ clients “one by one” unless the company paid the
ransom.

Prosecutors have asked the court to keep Wyatt in jail until
trial.