25-Year-Old British National Charged in Connection with IntelBroker Activities

Kai West, operating under the aliases “IntelBroker” and “Kyle Northern,” faces federal charges for orchestrating a multi-year cybercrime spree targeting U.S. corporations and government agencies.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed a criminal complaint outlining four felony counts, including conspiracy to commit computer intrusions (18 U.S.C. § 371), wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343), and unauthorized access to protected computers (18 U.S.C. § 1030).

West’s hacking collective, “CyberN[——],” allegedly caused over $25 million in damages through sophisticated data breaches.

CyberN[——]’s Attack Infrastructure

West’s group employed advanced techniques to infiltrate victim networks, including:

• API exploitation: Unauthorized access via misconfigured software interfaces (e.g., Victim-2’s server compromise through Software-1 vulnerabilities).
• Credential theft: Sale of administrator logins with default credentials extracted from breached systems1.
• Blockchain obfuscation: Use of privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) for ransom payments, with transactions exceeding $2.4 million1.
• The group operated primarily through “Forum-1,” a dark web platform where West posted 335 public breach announcements and facilitated data auctions.

High-Impact Data Breaches

Key intrusions attributed to West include:

1. Healthcare System Compromise (March 2023): Exfiltration of 56,415 patient records from Victim-3, including Social Security numbers and medical histories. West sold this data to an undercover FBI agent for $1,000 in Monero1.
2. Telecommunications Attack (January 2023): Theft of marketing databases from Victim-1 via Victim-2’s improperly configured server, causing “several hundred thousand dollars” in forensic costs1.
3. Government Provider Breach (August 2024): Theft of Victim-4’s internal communications through API vulnerabilities, with samples posted on Forum-1 as proof-of-concept1.

Digital Forensics Takedown

Investigators traced West through:

• Cryptocurrency trails: Bitcoin wallet (BTC Wallet-1) seeded from Ramp Account-1, registered to West’s UK driver’s license.
• Operational patterns: Forum-1 posts correlated with West’s email activity, including identical timestamps for YouTube video views and hacker forum uploads.
• KYC verification: “Kyle Northern” alias linked to the Coinbase account holding West’s true identity documents.

The charges carry maximum penalties of 20 years imprisonment for wire fraud and 10 years for computer intrusion violations.

West’s extradition from the UK is pending, while investigators continue mapping the CyberN[——]’s global infrastructure.

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