ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - An international hacker, who struck fear in the board rooms of some St. Louis corporations has been sentenced to five years in federal prison and forced to pay $1,467,048 in restitution.
U.S. District Judge Ronnie White for the Eastern District of Missouri sentenced Nathan Wyatt, 39, who participated in a computer hacking collective known as “The Dark Overlord,” which targeted victims in the St. Louis area beginning in 2016.
Wyatt seized patient and client data from local health care providers and accounting firms, threatening to release it on the web unless the companies paid a ransom of between $75,000 and $350,000 in bitcoin.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gwen Carroll says with one St. Louis CEO, it got personal.
"They sent, really, quite terrifying communications to the CEO of one of the victim companies saying they had pictures of his daughter," Carroll says. "Saying, 'It would be terrible if something bad happened to her.'"
“Cyber hackers mistakenly believe they can hide behind a keyboard,” said Special Agent in Charge Richard Quinn of the FBI’s St. Louis Field Office. “In this case, the FBI demonstrated once again that it will impose consequences on cyber criminals no matter how long it takes or where they are located.”
One of Wyatt's previous notable hackings came in September 2016, when he stole 3,000 images from an iCloud account belonging to Pippa Middleton, the younger sister of the British royal family member and Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton.
He's also served a 14-month sentence in a British prison for fraud, possession of an identity document with an improper intention and blackmail, according to the Post-Dispatch.