Scattered Spider hacker pleads guilty to stealing $8 million in cryptocurrency

Tyler Robert Buchanan, a 24-year-old British national tied to the Scattered Spider cybercrime collective, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for his role in an SMS-phishing campaign that targeted employees of entertainment, telecom, technology, BPO, cloud communications and virtual-currency firms, stealing over $8 million in cryptocurrency between September 2021 and April 2023. The group used social-engineering techniques — impersonating IT or supplier staff and delivering phishing sites via SMS to harvest credentials and bypass MFA — and while several members have been arrested, the collective remains active.