The 18-year-old cybercriminal faces prosecution for multiple offenses, including discovery and disclosure of secrets, illegal access to computer systems, computer damage and money laundering.
Spain‘s National Police, in a joint operation with the Civil Guard, has arrested an 18-year-old suspected of being the hacker going by aliases including “Natohub,” and known for hacking the computer services of private companies and Spanish institutions such as the Civil Guard, the Ministry of Defense, the National Mint, and the Ministry of Education, among others, and for violating international databases of organizations such as NATO and the US Army.
Natohub boasted about intrusions in different forums on the dark web, offering for sale certain stolen information and even freely publishing documents on different pages.
During the search of the suspect’s home, computer equipment was seized for analysis. Police alleged that the suspect had more than 50 cryptocurrency accounts with different types of assets, “a significant fact of the extensive knowledge that the arrested has of the blockchain world.”
He now faces prosecution for multiple crimes, such as discovery and disclosure of secrets, illicit access to computer systems, computer damage and money laundering.
The National Police began the investigation in February 2024 following a complaint from a Madrid business association after detecting a publication in a forum specialized in data leaks, where the poster claimed to be in possession of information from their website. After these events, and throughout the last year, the cybercriminal carried out more attacks, one of the most talked-about being that of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE), until the last one claimed, two databases of the Civil Guard and the Ministry of Defense, at the end of December.
“The suspect, with deep computer skills, had managed to set up a complete technological framework through the use of anonymous messaging and browsing applications through which he would have managed to hide his trail and thus hinder their investigation” the police said.
The operation has also counted with the collaboration of EUROPOL, the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of the United States and, locally, the National Cryptologic Center (CCN).
