UK teen arrested in connection to MGM hack

Police successful the UK person arrested a 17-year-old lad successful transportation with past year’s cyberattack connected MGM Resorts, arsenic reported by the BBC and 404 Media. With the assistance of the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency, the West Midlands Police took the teen into custody connected Friday connected suspicion of violating the UK’s laws connected hacking and blackmail.

The West Midlands constabulary accidental the fishy has been released connected bail portion the section investigates. It volition besides execute a forensic introspection connected a “number of integer devices” recovered from the teen’s code successful Walsall, England.

Last September, ransomware hackers broke into MGM’s systems utilizing societal engineering techniques, bringing the company’s networks of hotels and casinos down for days. The hackers liable for the onslaught look to person teamed up with the prolific ransomware radical ALPHV (also known arsenic BlackCat) to deploy ransomware connected MGM’s systems, according to The Washington Post.

“The FBI, successful coordination with its partners, volition proceed to relentlessly prosecute malicious actors who people American companies, nary substance wherever they whitethorn beryllium located oregon however blase their techniques are,” Bryan Vorndran, the adjunct manager of FBI’s Cyber Division, says successful a property release.

A report from Reuters past twelvemonth said that the FBI was alert of the casino hackers six months earlier the breach and that the bureau “struggled” to halt them, contempt knowing the identities “of astatine slightest a twelve members.”