Scattered Spider Member Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison

A member of the notorious hacker group Scattered Spider, 20-year-old American Noah Urban, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday. Urban pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including fraud, theft, and targeting cryptocurrency victims and companies.

According to Bloomberg, Urban is the first member of the hacker group to be sentenced. The ruling was handled by US District Judge Harvey Schlesinger in a courtroom in Jacksonville, Florida.

Urban was arrested in January 2024 in Florida. His lawyer, Kathryn Sheldon, said in court that her client had made “some very poor decisions as a teenager,” and had been influenced by older co-conspirators.

The hacks in which Urban participated affected victims who lost retirement savings, IVF fertility funds, and other assets, leaving many struggling financially after the thefts.

According to Jacksonville’s news station News4JAX, Urban must also pay $13 million in restitution to 59 victims in the case.

Urban has been accused of stealing at least $800,000 in cryptocurrency from five victims in the Florida case — the hacker faces another federal case in California. He used SIM swapping tactics, a type of cyberattack in which the hacker tricks a mobile carrier into transferring a number to another SIM card under their control, allowing them to bypass two-factor authentication, receive calls and texts, and access the victim’s accounts.

The hacker was also known by different aliases, such as Gustavo Fring, a reference to the show Breaking Bad, and King Bob, a nod to the Minions movie, and has been linked to the Scattered Spider hacker group, also known as 0ktapus and UNC3944.

According to cybersecurity experts, members of Scattered Spider are based in different countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe. Last year, another member of the group, a 22-year-old British national, was arrested in Spain.

Just a few weeks ago, the FBI issued a warning about Scattered Spider, citing its connection to the recent disruptions in the aviation industry. The gang has also been linked to aggressive campaigns targeting U.S. companies with ransomware attacks.