Technology
The Rise and Fall of the “Scattered Spider” Hackers.

After greater than two years of evading capture following a hacking spree that targeted some of the world’s largest technology firms, U.S. authorities say they’ve finally caught a minimum of some of the hackers responsible.
In August 2022 security researchers made their information public with a warning that a bunch of hackers targeted greater than 130 organizations in a complicated phishing campaign that stole the credentials of nearly 10,000 employees. The hackers specifically targeted firms that use Okta, a single sign-on service provider that hundreds of firms around the world use to permit their employees to log in from home.
Due to its give attention to Okta, the hacker group was dubbed “0ktapus”. By now the group has been hacked Caesar’s entertainmentCoinbase, DoorDash, Mailchimp, Riot Games, Twilio (twice) and dozens more.
The most notable and severe cyber attack by hackers in terms of downtime and impact was the September 2023 breach of MGM Resorts, which reportedly cost the casino and hotel giant a minimum of $100 million. In this case, the hackers collaborated with the Russian-speaking ransomware gang ALPHV and demanded a ransom from MGM for the company to get better its files. The break-in was such a nuisance that MGM-owned casinos had problems with service delivery for several days.
Over the past two years, as law enforcement has closed in on hackers, people in the cybersecurity industry have been attempting to work out exactly tips on how to classify hackers and whether to place them in a single group or one other.
Techniques utilized by hackers similar to social engineering, email and SMS phishing, and SIM swapping are common and widespread. Some of the individual hackers were part of several groups chargeable for various data breaches. These circumstances make it obscure exactly who belongs to which group. Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike has dubbed this hacker group “Scattered Spider,” and researchers imagine it has some overlap with 0ktapus.
The group was so energetic and successful that the US cybersecurity agency CISA and the FBI issued a advice in late 2023 with detailed details about the group’s activities and techniques in an try and help organizations prepare for and defend against anticipated attacks.
Scattered Spider is a “cybercriminal group targeting large companies and their IT helpdesks,” CISA said in its advisory. The agency warned that the group “typically engaged in data theft for extortion purposes” and noted its known ties to ransomware gangs.
One thing that is comparatively certain is that hackers mostly speak English and are generally believed to be teenagers or early 20s, and are sometimes called “advanced, persistent teenagers.”
“A disproportionate number of minors are involved and this is because the group deliberately recruits minors due to the lenient legal environment in which these minors live, and they know that nothing will happen to them if the police catch the child” – Allison Nixon , director of research for Unit 221B, told TechCrunch at the time.
Over the past two years, some members of 0ktapus and Scattered Spider have been linked to a similarly nebulous group of cybercriminals generally known as “Com” People inside this broader cybercriminal community committed crimes that leaked into the real world. Some of them are chargeable for acts of violence similar to robberies, burglaries and bricklaying – hiring thugs to throw bricks at someone’s house or apartment; and swatting – when someone tricks authorities into believing that a violent crime has occurred, prompting the intervention of an armed police unit. Although born as a joke, the swat has fatal consequences.
After two years of hacking, authorities are finally starting to discover and prosecute Scattered Spider members.
in July This was confirmed by the British police arrest of a 17-year-old in reference to the MGM burglary.
In November, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had indicted five hackers: Ahmed Hossam Eldin Elbadawy, 23, of College Station, Texas; Noah Michael Urban, 20, from Palm Coast, Florida, arrested in January; Evans Onyeaka Osiebo, 20, of Dallas, Texas; Joel Martin Evans, 25, of Jacksonville, North Carolina; and Tyler Robert Buchanan, 22, from the UK, who was arrested in June in Spain.
Technology
Benchmarks meta for new AI models are somewhat misleading

One of the new flagship AI Meta models released on Saturday, Maverick, Second rating at LM ArenaA test during which human rankings compare the outcomes of models and select which they like. But it appears that evidently the Maverick version, that the finish implemented on LM Arena differs from the version that’s widely available to programmers.
How several And researchers He pointed to X, Meta noticed within the announcement that Maverick on LM Arena is a “experimental version of the chat.” Chart on The official website of LlamaMeanwhile, it reveals that the testing of the LM META Arena was carried out using “Llama 4 Maverick optimized for conversation.”
As we wrote earlier, for various reasons LM Arena has never been essentially the most reliable measure of the performance of the AI model. But AI firms generally didn’t adapt or otherwise adapted their models to higher rating at LM Arena-Lub a minimum of didn’t admit it.
The problem related to adapting the model to the reference point, suspension of it, after which releasing the “vanilla” variant of the identical model, is that programmers are difficult to predict how good it can work in specific contexts. It can be misleading. It is best if the tests tests – miserably inadequate – provide a shutter of strong and weaknesses of 1 model in various tasks.
Indeed, scientists on X have Stark was observed Differences in behavior From publicly to download maverick in comparison with the hosted model on LM Arena. The LM Arena version seems to make use of many emoji and provides extremely long answers.
Okay, Lama 4 is Def and Littled cooked lol, what a yap city is that this city pic.twitter.com/y3gvhbvz65
– Nathan Lambert (@natolambert) April 6, 2025
For some reason, the Llam 4 model in the sector uses rather more emoji
together. Ai, it seems higher: pic.twitter.com/f74odx4zttt
– technological notes (@techdevnotes) April 6, 2025
We arrived at Meta and Chatbot Arena, a company that maintains LM Arena to comment.
(Tagstotransate) benchmark
Technology
Trump delays the ban

Donald Trump has signed a brand new executive order “Save Tiktok”.
Tiktok will live to see the next day – at the least for now. On April 4, President Donald Trump signed a brand new executive order delaying the ban on a preferred social application by one other 75 days. The application was to darken in the USA on April 5.
The application, belonging to the Chinese company Bytedance, is now on the second extension in the first quarter of the 12 months. In 2024, President Biden signed bilateral laws of Ban Tiktok, citing fears about national security. Congress voted in a predominant means. Although Trump has signed the executive order to “save” the application, many questioned the legality of the movement. Like many president’s actions at the starting of his term, they complain that evidently he exceeds the authority of the executive office.
Trump announced his move to Stop the ban on social truthSaying that his administration remains to be working on the contract.
“My administration worked very hard on the Tiktok saving contract, and we have made great progress,” Trump wrote on April 4. “The contract requires more work to ensure the signing of all necessary approvals, which is why I sign an executive order to continue tiktok for an additional 75 days.”
Trump quoted his newly imposed tariffs to China as a key reason for detained negotiations for the buyer.
“We hope to continue working in good faith with China, which, as I understand, are not very satisfied with our mutual tariffs – necessary for honest and balanced trade between China and the USA,” wrote Trump. “It proves that tariffs are the most powerful economic tool and very important for our national security. We do not want Tiktok to go dark. We are looking forward to cooperation with Tiktok and China to complete the contract.”
This means a second time Trump entered to delay the ban. On January 2, just a couple of days after returning to the office, he signed the first extension to stop Tiktok, utilized by over 170 million Americans available to users.
The potential sales of Tiktok draws the major attention of the principal players in the business world. According to HillMany private equity firms, the Venture Capital groups and the best technological investors have introduced offers for a preferred application.
Among the firms, apparently in the mix are Blackstone, Oracle, Amazon – led by Jeff Bezos – and the founding father of Onlyfans Tim Stokely. Interest in purchasing Tiktok has increased, how uncertainty about its future in the US is always growing.
The application, utilized by 170 million Americans, is situated at the center of ongoing political and economic negotiations between the United States and China. Along with the upcoming pressure and deadlines, the possibility of selling opened the door to the largest technological and financial names.
Technology
Doge is supposedly planning Hackathon to build a “mega api” for IRS data

The Department of Government Elon Musk (DOGE) is planning Organize Hackathon next week Focused on creating a “mega API interface”, which is able to provide access to taxpayers, according to Wired.
Wired claims that Hackathon is organized by two Doge employees within the service of the inner rule – Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, who’re also the final director at the extent of Healthtech startups. Corcos reportedly said to others in Doge that his goal is to build “one new API to rule them all.”
This would facilitate cloud suppliers access to IRS data, including taxpayers’ names, addresses, social insurance numbers, tax declarations and employment information, which may very well be exported to external systems. According to Wired, the vendor of external parties managed parts of the project, and Palantir “consistently” grew up as a candidate.
“Basically, they are open door controlled by Musk for the most sensitive information of all Americans without any rules that normally secure this data,” said an anonymous IRS worker said.
(Tagstranslate) dog
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