Two men arrested after cyber attack that saw data of 8,000 nursery children stolen

Two people have been arrested after a cyber attack on a chain of London nurseries saw the data of thousands of nursery-age children stolen.

Kido International, a nursery chain with 18 sites in London and more in the US and India, was held to ransom by hackers last month.

Hackers told the BBC in September that they have the names, addresses and photographs of thousands of nursery-age children as well as the details of their parents and guardians.

Some profiles were posted on the hacking group’s website on the dark web, a shady corner of the internet inaccessible to most web browsers, though they were later deleted.

Two men, aged 17 and 22, were arrested today in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, on suspicion of computer misuse and blackmail.

The pair remain in custody, the force said this evening.

M&S, Co-op, Harrods and London’s Heathrow Airport, among many others, have been targeted by cyber criminals in recent months.

Matthew Lloyd Davies, a senior cybersecurity author and researcher at the tech workplace development company, Pluralsight, said the attack against Kido was an unusual one in the hacking world.

‘Young children are rarely, if ever, targeted in cybercrime, and this attack was unique because the attackers directly pressured parents of affected children,’ Davies told Metro.

‘We have seen groups reach out to CEOs, as in the M&S case, but this is a tactic we haven’t seen at this scale before and targeting families brings a new level of concern.’

A relatively new hacking group called Radiant contacted the BBC, taking responsibility for the cyber attack.

The group’s ‘About’ webpage said their one goal is money.

‘Your company failed to secure its network and we took advantage of that. It’s purely business-based,’ they wrote.

Radiant is still active, according to the ransomware group tracking service, Ransom-DB.

Will Lyne, the Met Police’s Head of Economic and Cybercrime, said: ‘Since these attacks took place, specialist Met investigators have been working at pace to identify those responsible.

‘We understand reports of this nature can cause considerable concern, especially to those parents and carers who may be worried about the impact of such an incident on them and their families.

‘We want to reassure the community and anyone affected that this matter continues to be taken extremely seriously.

‘These arrests are a significant step forward in our investigation, but our work continues, alongside our partners, to ensure those responsible are brought to justice.’

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