"A London teenager is facing a maximum 95 years in prison for allegedly calling company help desks and convincing employees to reset passwords in a massive campaign to steal data and hold it for ransom. All told, the scheme allegedly extorted 47 unnamed U.S. entities and hit at least 120 computer networks-including the U.S. federal court system. Payments from victims totaled $115 million, prosecutors from the Department of Justice said."
"The operation was multi-faceted, according to law enforcement. Jubair and other unnamed conspirators allegedly contacted company help desks and convinced representatives to reset other users' passwords multiple times in addition to allegedly running password cracking software. Once successfully inside the company networks, the alleged hackers were able to encrypt or steal data and threaten to delete or publish it unless executives agreed to pay ransom. Prosecutors claim portions of payments from the victim companies were traced to a server allegedly controlled by Jubair."
A London teenager faces up to 95 years in prison for allegedly using social-engineering calls to company help desks to obtain password resets and access networks. The alleged campaign targeted 47 unnamed U.S. entities and affected at least 120 computer networks, including the U.S. federal court system. Victim payments traced by prosecutors totaled $115 million. Authorities charged Thalha Jubair, 19, with computer and wire fraud and multiple conspiracy counts and linked him to a hacking group called Scattered Spider spanning May 2022 to September 2025. Alleged tactics included repeated help-desk manipulation, password-cracking tools, data encryption or theft, and ransom demands; portions of ransom payments were traced to a server allegedly controlled by Jubair.
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