British 'Dark Overlord' hacker jailed for five years in the US
Nathan Wyatt is the only member of the prolific hacking group to be identified
A British man has been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing information from several US companies as part of The Dark Overlord hacking group.
Nathan Francis Wyatt, a 39-year-old from Northamptonshire, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit aggravated identity theft and computer fraud in a federal court in St Louis.
Wyatt, the only member of the group to have been identified, set up a phone account and Twitter and PayPal profiles that were used to communicate and receive money. He was ordered to pay about $1.5 million in restitution fees.
The Dark Overlord stole medical records, client files and personal information from companies, then demanded between $75,000 and $300,000 worth of Bitcoin to return the information, according to federal prosecutor Laura Kathleen Bernstein.
The group has been linked to a spate of attacks in both the US and UK and often threaten to release stolen data on the dark web if their demands are not paid.
Wyatt's actions helped the other hackers remain anonymous, according to Bernstein, and his phone account was used to send threatening text messages to relatives of victims. Although none of the victims paid the ransom, they did lose money due to the intrusion and subsequent release of stolen data.
During his Zoom hearing, Wyatt apologised and said that his mental health problems were the reason for his bad decisions, according to The St.Louis Post-Dispatch.
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2026 report - the leading resource for IT decision-maker insight on priorities and investment areas in AI, security and more.
"I can promise you that I'm out of that world," he said. "I don't want to see another computer for the rest of my life."
In an unrelated case, Wyatt was arrested in 2016 by police investigating the hacking of an iCloud account that belonged to Pippa Matthews - the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge. Wyatt was released with no further action in September 2017. He has, however, served 14 months in a British prison for hacking and fraud offences.
Bobby Hellard is ITPro's Reviews Editor and has worked on CloudPro and ChannelPro since 2018. In his time at ITPro, Bobby has covered stories for all the major technology companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, and regularly attends industry-leading events such as AWS Re:Invent and Google Cloud Next.
Bobby mainly covers hardware reviews, but you will also recognize him as the face of many of our video reviews of laptops and smartphones.
-
Companies are still paying ransoms to cyber criminals despite official adviceNews A Proofpoint survey found evolving ransomware techniques and the use of AI is exacerbating the situation for victims
-
This one cyber crime group accounted for nearly a fifth of all ransomware attacks in JuneNews The Gentlemen, a ransomware a service operator, now accounts for 17% of published attacks
-
Working with the enemy: Ransomware negotiator-turned cyber criminal jailed after working with hackers to extort clientsNews Angelo Martino was supposed to be negotiating on behalf of victims, but was secretly working for ransomware operators
-
Hackers are posing as Interpol to target small businesses – here's what you need to knowNews Small businesses are warned to think twice before clicking on links
-
‘Every hour ransomware goes undetected drastically increases its potential blast radius’: Hackers are breaching networks and laying low for longer – and nearly half of firms don’t realize until data is stolenNews An ExtraHop survey found more intrusions are going undetected, leading to longer dwell times
-
Ransomware cartels are fragmenting into volatile splinter groups, warns Met Police cyber chiefNews Commoditized "cyber crime bazaars" and AI data mining are forcing law enforcement to rewrite its playbook
-
New ransomware threat group, The Gentlemen, has become one of the most active ransomware operators, accounting for 10% of all attacksNews NTT researchers warn that the RaaS group is leveraging SystemBC malware to establish covert tunnelling, evade detection, and support rapid lateral movement across enterprise environments
-
Instructure chose to a pay ransom following the Canvas cyber attack – research shows more than half of security leaders would follow suitAnalysis Opting to pay ransoms creates huge risks for enterprises – you’re relying on the word of criminals

