‘Scattered Spider’ Member ‘Tylerb’ Pleads Guilty – Krebs on Security
--> Advertisement Advertisement A 24-year-old British national and senior member of the cybercrime group “Scattered Spider” has pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. Tyler Robert Buchanan admitted his role in a series of text-message phishing attacks in the summer of 2022 that allowed the group to hack into at least a dozen major technology companies and steal tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from investors. Buchanan’s hacker handle “Tylerb” once graced a leaderboard in the English-language criminal hacking scene that tracked the most accomplished cyber thieves. Now in U.S. custody and awaiting sentencing, the Dundee, Scotland native is facing the possibility of more than 20 years in prison. Two photos published in a Daily Mail story dated May 3, 2025 show Buchanan as a child (left) and as an adult being detained by airport authorities in Spain. “M&S” in this screenshot refers to Marks & Spencer, a major U.K. retail chain that suffered a ransomware attack last year at the hands of Scattered Spider. Scattered Spider is the name given to a prolific English-speaking cybercrime group known for using social engineering tactics to break into companies and steal data for ransom, often impersonating employees or contractors to deceive IT help desks into granting access. As part of his guilty plea, Buchanan admitted conspiring with other Scattered Spider members to launch tens of thousands of SMS-based phishing attacks in 2022 that led to intrusions at a number of technology companies, including Twilio, LastPass, DoorDash, and Mailchimp. The group then used data stolen in those breaches to carry out SIM-swapping attacks that siphoned funds from individual cryptocurrency investors. In an unauthorized SIM-swap, crooks transfer the target’s phone number to a device they control and intercept any text messages or phone calls to the victim’s device — such as one-time passcodes for authentication and password reset links sent via SMS. The U.S. Justice Department said Buchanan admitted to stealing at least $8 million in virtual currency from individual victims throughout the United States. FBI investigators tied Buchanan to the 2022 SMS phishing attacks after discovering the same username and email address was used to register numerous phishing domains seen in the campaign. The domain registrar NameCheap found that less than a month before the phishing spree, the account that registered those domains logged in from an Internet address in the U.K. FBI investigators said the Scottish police told them the address was leased to Buchanan throughout 2022. As first reported by KrebsOnSecurity, Buchanan fled the United Kingdom in February 2023, after a rival cybercrime gang hired thugs to invade his home, assault his mother, and threaten to burn him with a blowtorch unless he gave up the keys to his cryptocurrency wallet. That same year, U.K. investigators found a device at Buchanan’s Scotland residence that included data stolen from SMS phishing victims and seed phrases from cryptocurrency theft victims. Buchanan was arrested by Spanish authorities in June 2024 while trying to board a flight to Italy. He was extradited to the United States and has remained in U.S. federal custody since April 2025. Buchanan is the second known Scattered Spider member to plead guilty. Noah Michael Urban, 21, of Palm Coast, Fla., was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison last year and ordered to pay $13 million in restitution. Three other alleged co-conspirators — Ahmed Hossam Eldin Elbadawy, 24, a.k.a. “AD,” of College Station, Texas; Evans Onyeaka Osiebo, 21, of Dallas, Texas; and Joel Martin Evans, 26, a.k.a. “joeleoli,” of Jacksonville, North Carolina – still face criminal charges. Two other alleged Scattered Spider members will soon be tried in the United Kingdom. Owen Flowers, 18, and Thalha Jubair, 20, are facing charges related to the hacking and extortion of several large U.K. retailers, the London transit system, and healthcare providers in the United States. Both have pleaded not guilty, and their trial is slated to begin in June. Investigators say the Scattered Spider suspects are part of a sprawling cybercriminal community online known as “The Com,” wherein hackers from different cliques boast publicly on Telegram and Discord about high-profile cyber thefts that almost invariably begin with social engineering — tricking people over the phone, email or SMS into giving away credentials that allow remote access to corporate internal networks. One of the more popular SIM-swapping channels on Telegram has long maintained a leaderboard of the most rapacious SIM-swappers, indexed by their supposed conquests in stealing cryptocurrency. That leaderboard previously listed Buchanan’s hacker alias Tylerb at #65 (out of 100 hackers), with Urban’s moniker “Sosa” coming in at #24. Buchanan’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 21, 2026. According to the Justice Department, he faces a statutory maximum sentence of 22 years in federal prison. However, any sentence the judge hands down in this case may be significantly tempered by a number of mitigating factors in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, including the defendant’s age, criminal history, time already served in U.S. custody, and the degree to which they cooperated with federal authorities. 33 thoughts on “‘Scattered Spider’ Member ‘Tylerb’ Pleads Guilty” The folly of the “very young and incredibly stupid”. Quite.
“The domain registrar NameCheap found that less than a month before the phishing spree, the account that registered those domains logged in from an Internet address in the U.K.” Maybe I’m missing something, but it sounds like this POS was too lazy, too incompetent, too something, to use a freakin’ VPN – DUH. You know what they say about KARMA… Do VPNs actually work like people think they do? Sometimes. Not sure what you are asking. Sorta like asking if Tor works. Depends on what whoever uses the VPN is trying to accomplish? It would have shown that he registered the domain from an IP address literally shared with thousands of people and if the VPN provider doesn’t keep logs (which many don’t), there is no forensic trail to follow. It wouldn’t have made it impossible to catch the guy but what he did was a total rookie mistake. Not all VPNs are shared, dude. No clue if that address was, but not a great idea to spread misinformation about VPNs. For that matter, not all VPNs are even ‘registered’ or recognizable as VPNs.
tyler b never leased those domains on his main internet ip address, if you believe this then there is no hope for you. the spanish polis said they seized $27mil and now he pleaded guilty to $8mil in america? so what abt the other unaccounted for money, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense,.. It says “at least” 8 million. Charges are only as good as evidence to prove beyond doubt. It also doesn’t say his “main” internet IP address, only that it was leased to him in 2022. Journalism can only supply as many facts as are available. Maybe his soft-VPN failed, maybe his IP was only exposed a handful of times, yet was enough to link it to him. Criminals make opsec mistakes all the time. That much is documented beyond doubt. I don’t see what you can’t fathom here. Are we talking about the same person whose online pseudonym was his REAL first and middle name (Tyler B)? It’s not a particularly unrealistic jump to surmise that perhaps his operational security practices needed some improvement, and therefore that he may have been equally as lacking in it in other domains (such as hiding his IP address). If you believe that it’s possible for him to have used his real name but somehow not his real IP then there is no hope for you.
I have kind of been confused about most ransomware attempts since ca. 2010. Given the fact that blockchain is so imminently traceable (and linked to various strangers’ often unrelated comments, at times), it would seem to me to be difficult to do something like withdraw a lot of it, not to mention ‘launder’ it, more than once or twice. Then again, I am not sure much of it is about the money. Is it more like a competition? I am vaguely ignorant about the ransomware scene. privacy chains like monero aren’t traceable as the transactions aren’t publicly viewable. If the goal is spending in real life almost always the funds are just channeled through sites like houdiniswap that allow large exchanges without KYC (e.g. on houdiniswap I have heard of up to 250k being swapped without any identification, fully automated). The real issue I think would be trying to come up with an explanation to the IRS or other relevant tax party as to where you spawned in 10 years of wage from. It also isn’t uncommon for the funds to be spent online in ways that don’t tie IRL at all. the OG username market is primarily driven by fraud, it isn’t uncommon for good telegram usernames to sell anywhere from 20-100k. Many of the accomplished criminals buy usernames like this as they hold their value and also are yet another way of flexing on the rest of the com, @dead on telegram ha