- Two teenagers, Owen Flowers and Thalha Jubair, were sentenced to five years and six months in prison for a cyber-attack on Transport for London (TfL) in 2024.
- The attack disrupted TfL's services for months, stole personal data of millions, and cost TfL £29 million.
- The hackers, part of the Scattered Spider collective, live-streamed their 16-hour attack and accessed data by impersonating an employee via a help desk.
- Both hackers have autism and were described as loners; their motives were more about online notoriety than financial gain, despite accumulating millions in cryptocurrency.
- Flowers had prior cyber crime involvement from age 16, while Jubair had 22 previous convictions and is wanted in the U.S. for crimes allegedly leading to $115 million in ransoms.
- The case highlights the threat of young hackers in the UK, with calls for societal efforts to protect youth online and address cyber crime as a violent gang problem.