Spider Group Hacker Identified by MS GUID

[frase]

A 19-year-old walked through Helsinki airport in April 2026 carrying two 2TB hard drives and a ticket to Japan. He couldn’t make that flight. Finnish police stopped him on an Interpol Red Notice, and by July, US prosecutors had unsealed a federal complaint identifying him as Peter Stokes, an alleged member of the Scattered Spider hacking group, wanted over a May 2025 breach of a US luxury jewelry retailer that ended in an $8 million ransom demands.

So basically MS tracked the user down via the telemetry services of Microsofts GUID. The service is enabled when a user is logged into windows with a MS Account or allowing the services when installing Windows.

Even more reason to use local account or not Windows at all when doing shady stuff.

Microsoft device telemetry key to unmasking alleged Scattered Spider hacker}

 

[callthatgirl]

No doubt he lost his password and he was locked out and couldn't get the recovery form to work lol

 

[britechguy]

Even more reason to use local account or not Windows at all when doing shady stuff.

Well, since "shady stuff" is not something I do . . .

 

[phaZed]

I don't do shady stuff, but still value my privacy. Windows as a daily driver is a non-starter at this point, for me.
Windows 10 pushed the issue, Windows 11 broke it.

 

[britechguy]

still value my privacy

As do I, mine. But each of us has our own cut-off points, which is perfectly appropriate.

Windows 11 doesn't come close to where my own cut-off point lies.

To each his or her own.

 

[frase]

Well, since "shady stuff" is not something I do . . .

Well either do I, as that would allow the term "shady"; though I was referencing the hacker as the real Slim Shady.