Brit Locked Up in Finland for Hacking Online Casinos, Stealing $900K

A British man has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison in Finland for hacking into two online casinos to steal around €835K (US$900K).

On Friday, July 7, William Anthony Parker, 34, was found guilty of aggravated online casino fraud by the District Court of Central Finland, according to Yle, the Finnish public broadcaster. Parker was able to infiltrate the casinos’ systems by exploiting a security vulnerability to “obtain a financial benefit for himself.”

The report didn’t say exactly how he went about this. However, a Yle article from May that focused on the investigation suggested that he had distorted the results of games in his favor. He did this while using legal software that is intended for use as a cybersecurity tool.

Lone Wolf

The crimes took place between April and May 2023 in Vantaa, a city in southern Finland, although Parker is a resident of the UK. Prosecutors believe he acted alone. He was arrested in central Finland in January of this year and initially charged with gross data breach and financial fraud.

Assets found in his possession at the time of his arrest were frozen by court order during the preliminary investigation. These included more than €9K (US$9.7K) in cash as well as 100 gold coins, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of more than three years for Parker. The court’s verdict in the case isn’t final, meaning that the ruling is still subject to appeal, Yle reported.

Major Breaches

The case highlights how cybercriminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to target both online and land-based casinos. In September 2023, hackers stole around $41 million worth of cryptocurrency from crypto gambling site Stake.com.

It was a “sophisticated breach” that exploited a service that the casino uses to authorize crypto transactions, according to Stake.com founder Edward Craven.

The FBI has attributed the attack to North Korea and its infamous state-sponsored cybercrime unit, the Lazarus Group. 

In the same month as the Lazarus attack, land-based casino giants Caesars and MGM Resorts were hit by ransomware attacks organized by a hacking group called “Scattered Spider.”

MGM refused to pay out and saw disruption to its operations that lasted for days, causing an estimated $100 million in damage. Caesars paid a ransom of around $15 million to have normal services restored.