Cybercriminals we lost to law in 2022

This year witnessed some of the most jaw-dropping cybercrime and breaches — and the highest-profile arrests — ranging from teenager hackers breaking into Fortune 500 networks to someone hiding billions of dollars' worth of bitcoin under the floorboards.

We reflect on the cybercriminals we lost to the law in 2022.

​​WhatsApp-hacking tech

One Mexican businessman admitted selling WhatsApp hacking tools, Wi-Fi interception tools and Signal Jammers both for profit and for personal use. 

Carlos Guerrero was charged by the Justice Department with, among other things, organising the sale of hacking tools to Mexican politicians and using other tools he supplied to eavesdrop on the phone calls of an American adversary. 

UK arrest teen hackers linked to Uber, GTA hacks

Police in London announced in September that a 17-year-old suspect in high-profile breaches at Rockstar Games and ride-hailing giant Uber had been charged with multiple charges of computer abuse and bail violations.

These two hacks were among the most well-known ones from 2022. Uber was forced to shut down a number of its internal tools while it kicked the hacker off its network because it believed a hacker connected to Lapsus$ was behind the attack. 

Employees at Uber got a message stating, "I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach," just before the Slack system was shut down. According to reports, the hacker also suggested that Uber drivers should be paid more.

Lapsus$ finally caught

In 2022, the Lapsus$ gang gained notoriety. After originally appearing a year ago, the data extortion gang soon claimed a number of well-known victims, including Okta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Samsung.

The group once appeared unstoppable, but some of its members were detained in March of this year. At the time, the City of London Police confirmed in a statement to TechCrunch that seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 had been detained in connection with Lapsus$.

One of largest bank robberies in American history

Paige Thompson, a former engineer in Amazon's cloud business, was found guilty of a breach that exposed the private information and money of 100 million CapitalOne clients in 2019. 

One of the largest bank robberies in American history, it affected one million Canadians and resulted in the theft of credit scores, restrictions, and balances. Thompson was accused of hacking into CapitalOne's online cloud storage, which is hosted on Amazon's servers. 

Prosecutors said the former Amazon engineer was “one bad day away from sharing the data she stole.” 

James Zhong, hacker who stole billions of Silk Road's bitcoin

The mystery of the infamous dark web narcotics marketplace Silk Road's lost billions was solved in a stunning but underwhelming end to one of the US government's longest-running cyber cases. 

Authorities claimed in November that they had discovered $3.36 billion in bitcoin that had been hidden in a popcorn can under the bathroom closet floorboards of the hacker's house nearly ten years ago. 

The hacker, a citizen of Georgia by the name of James Zhong, agreed to surrender the vast amount of bitcoin as well as $600,000 in cash and other precious metals.