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The Nationwide Crime Agency (NCA) in London has arrested two 19-365 days-inclined males, a 17-365 days-inclined boy and a 20-365 days-inclined girl on suspicion of blackmail, cash laundering, organized crime and contravening the Pc Misuse Act. These arrests are section of an investigation into a series of cyberattacks on three neat UK retailers — Marks & Spencer, Harrods and Co-op — earlier this 365 days.

UK investigators imagine the suspects are linked with a free-knit English-talking hacker neighborhood known as Scattered Spider, which has been blamed for a series of excessive-profile incidents. For Co-op, this was the 2d such incident this 365 days, after a hacking neighborhood known as DragonForce obtained catch entry to to the retailer’s membership files. Scattered Spider was implicated in 2023 when US-based totally casino chain Caesars Entertainment reportedly paid tens of thousands and thousands of dollars to the neighborhood in uncover to support its clients’ files from being uncovered.

Marks & Spencer was attacked in April and was pressured to shut down its online retailer for over a month. Co-op fell victim the identical month in an assault that ended in a partial shutdown of its IT system. Harrods disclosed on Might presumably perhaps 1 that it had staved off an tried assault by restricting files superhighway catch entry to all over its internet sites.

“Since these attacks took place, specialist NCA cybercrime investigators have been working at pace and the investigation remains one of the agency’s highest priorities,” mentioned Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s nationwide cybercrime unit.

The four suspects reside in custody for questioning.