Security News > 2020 > September > 'I don’t want to see another computer for the rest of my life'... Brit Dark Overlord cyber-extortionist thrown in an American clink for five years
The front man for the notorious Dark Overlord hacker gang, which threatened to leak stolen confidential information unless paid off, has been sentenced to five years behind bars in America.
Wyatt was among a crew of miscreants who since 2016 operated under the Dark Overlord brand: they would hack people and organizations, and threaten to dump their victims' private documents onto the web unless payment - typically between $75,000 and $350,000 in Bitcoin - was coughed up.
Court filings detail how, while trying to strong-arm hacked businesses into paying, Wyatt would send creepy, intimidating messages with detailed information about the spouses, parents, and children of those at the companies Dark Overlord was targeting.
Among the companies targeted were doctors' offices, accountants, a medical records company, and banks in the US. "He created, validated, and maintained phone accounts, a PayPal account, virtual private networks, and a Twitter account that were used to maliciously hack and extort multiple US companies," American prosecutors noted in their sentencing letter [PDF].
"I can promise you that I just want to go home to my family. I'm out of that world, and I don't want to see another computer for the rest of my life."