Dutch police arrest ShinyHunters hacker accused of planning two murders

The FBI and Dutch instrumentality enforcement accidental they person arrested a subordinate of the ShinyHunters hacking group, which the agencies accidental are liable for hacks connected implicit 140 organizations astir the world. The hackers besides claimed work for a breach of the FBI’s ain systems earlier this month.

Brett Leathermann, the FBI’s cyber part lead, said successful a video message connected Tuesday that Dutch authorities had arrested 1 of the “alleged leaders of ShinyHunters.” Leathermann added that the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit “moved rapidly to support victims and sphere captious evidence,” and vowed that the bureau would spell aft the remainder of the hackers pursuing the arrest.

In a abstracted statement, Dutch constabulary confirmed that an unnamed 24-year-old man from Amsterdam was arrested nether Dutch instrumentality connected September 15. The antheral was scheduled to look successful tribunal connected Tuesday, and has been remanded into custody for astatine slightest 90 days.

The constabulary accidental the antheral was arrested for “participating successful a transgression organization,” referring to ShinyHunters.

Following his apprehension and seizure of his devices, the constabulary said “a batch of accusation was recovered connected his laptop, including astir 2 murders that should beryllium committed abroad.” As such, helium is besides being investigated for attempting to orchestrate the murders. The Dutch authorities said this is “separate from the probe into ShinyHunters.”

ShinyHunters is simply a cyber transgression pack that are accused of hacking into companies to bargain reams of information and past threatening to people the information if its victims bash not wage a ransom. The Dutch authorities said the pack are accused of information breaches astatine Pornhub, Ticketmaster, and U.S. telco elephantine AT&T. The hacking radical besides took work for a breach of Dutch telephone supplier Odido. However, the authorities said that the antheral they took into custody has not been arrested successful narration to the Odido hack.

Independent information writer Brian Krebs, who was archetypal to study the arrest, and different media outlets person named the arrested antheral arsenic Pepijn van der Stap, who was profiled by Bloomberg successful 2024 arsenic a cybersecurity researcher who besides moonlighted arsenic a transgression hacker who extorted companies.

According to caller reporting by Bloomberg and Reuters, Van der Stap was arrested earlier this period by constabulary astatine the offices of Neo Security, wherever Van der Stap is employed arsenic main exertion officer. The raid reportedly progressive flash-bang grenades.

A typical for Neo Security did not instantly respond to TechCrunch’s petition for comment. When asked by TechCrunch, a typical of the ShinyHunters radical told TechCrunch that Van der Stap “has nary relation with us.”

News of the apprehension comes days aft the FBI reportedly told its ain agents and employees that their idiosyncratic information, including their names, addresses, occupation titles and Social Security numbers, were exposed successful a “cyber information incident.” The FBI has not yet publically confirmed a breach, but the ShinyHunters pack said it took idiosyncratic and delicate information belonging to “mostly all” of the FBI’s agents and applicants by breaching its careers website and occupation exertion portal.

Among the illustration of 5,000 oregon truthful agents who had information stolen from the portal, reporters person besides recovered information relating to agents’ blood and urine samples, arsenic good arsenic psychiatric reports, which sparked fears of a large counterintelligence situation to forestall an adversarial authorities from obtaining the data.

When contacted by TechCrunch, Leathermann did not comment. An FBI spokesperson declined to remark connected our questions relating to the arrest.

For their part, the ShinyHunters hackers reiterated that the breach of the FBI’s servers was not a financially motivated attack, but was intended to situation nationalist claims made by the FBI, which the hackers accidental incorporate mendacious allegations astir the group. The hackers told TechCrunch that they volition not people the stolen FBI data, and added that the breach was “to marque a constituent and to quality the allegations made against america and we person done so.”