British Man Linked to The Dark Overlord Hacking Group Given 3-Year Jail Sentence

A individual connected to the hacking group TheDarkOverlord has been given a three year jail sentence for fraud and blackmail offenses, although not for any cyberattacks or extortion efforts related to the The Dark Overlord gang.

Nathan Wyatt, 36, resident in Wellingborough, England, using an online pseudonym the Crafty Cockney, pleaded guilty to 20 counts of fraud by false representation, a further two counts related to blackmail, and one count of possession of a false identity document with the aim of to deceiving.

Recently, at Southwark Crown Court, Wyatt was sentenced to serve three years in jail by Judge Martin Griffiths. At the sentencing hearing, Judge Griffiths stated Wyatt was responsible for many more crimes including those pursued via the courts. Some of those offenses are connected to the TheDarkOverlord.

In September 2017, Wyatt was arrested for trying to broker the sale of images of Pippa Middleton, which had been taken from a hack of her iPhone. Pippa Middleton is the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge. The charges connected to that incident were dropped and Wyatt claims he was not to blame for the hack.

During the course of that particular investigation, Wyatt’s computer was apprehended. An analysis of the device showed he had been active in other crimes. At first, Wyatt was arrested for using a false identity document and fraud offenses in January 2017, and was arrested a second time in March in offenses.relating to blackmail offenses.

Police found that Wyatt had used stolen details to apply for a payment card, although the application was turned down. Wyatt had also used his dead step father’s credit card to make a string of online purchases, including purchases of computer games and cell phones. Wyatt ran up debts in the region of £4,750 on the card, according to a report in the Northamptonshire Telegraph.

An extortion effort saw Wyatt use the name “The Dark Overlords” on a ransom demand in which he tried to obtain a payment of €10,000 in Bitcoin from a UK legal practice. Wyatt stole approximately 10,000 files from the unnamed Humberside law firm using malware to access to the files on the law firm’s IT server.

In that extortion attempt, Wyatt said that he was trying to offload the stolen files to buyers in Russia and China if the ransom demand wasn’t paid. The files included detailed scans of driver’s licenses and passports. It is unclear whether Wyatt hacked the law practice or if he used stolen credentials to obtain access to its system to install malware.

Wyatt’s partner, Kelly Walker, aged 35, was also arrested and charged with handling stolen goods and encouraging or aiding offenses, but she was acquitted when prosecutors could not provide any proof to support the charges.

It is not known whether Wyatt was a main member of the Dark Overlord hacking group, a fringe player, or if he was a copycat that used the group’s handle. Dissent from Databreaches.net stated in a recent blog post that Wyatt was allegedly supposed to make a call to one of the Dark Overlord’s victims in Georgia to force the clinic to pay the ransom request. Wyatt was also allegedly to blame for opening back accounts in the UK on behalf of the Dark Overlord to take payments issued from hacking victims in the United States.

Wyatt is likely to be set free in 18 months. In the United Kingdom, prisoners serving between 1 and 4-year jail sentences are normally released after they have served half of their sentence, with the remainder of the sentence served on probation. Wyatt has not been charged for any offenses committed in the USA.