18-year-old arrested in Athens as member of KillSec hacker group

An 18-year-old foreign national was arrested in Athens as a member of the international hacking group KillSec, which conducted cyberattacks and demanded ransoms. The arrest was part of a coordinated operation involving authorities from nine countries. The suspect, who allegedly served as a developer, was found during a house search where police seized a laptop, four phones, two hard drives, USB sticks, and a notebook. The operation, called "KillSwitch," was coordinated by Eurojust with Europol support, and included three arrests and eight searches across multiple countries. KillSec has been active since 2024 and is linked to nearly 1,000 cyberattacks worldwide, with about 500 confirmed successful. Authorities also took control of the group's leak site and secured 110 terabytes of data. The 18-year-old was a minor during some of the alleged offenses.