Hacker scare in the US: Who are the Sudanese brothers accused of leading a cyberattack gang that is risking lives?

According to the Washington Post, the nefarious brother duo from Sudan have been charged with conspiracy and computer interference, including at least one hospital in the United States. If found guilty, they could face life imprisonment. The mysterious company, which is believed to have 80,000 subscribers on Telegram, is reportedly led by Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer and Alaa Salah Yusuuf Omer. The brothers, who were arrested in March, have been in custody since then, revealed Martin Estrada, US attorney for the Los Angeles region.

According to the indictment, the group Anonymous Sudan not only crippled U.S. businesses and government sites, but also hindered the operations of government sites in Dubai, Chad, Bahrain and other countries. Israel’s Red Alert system, which was responsible for warning citizens of impending Hamas attacks on October 7, was also reportedly compromised by the same hacker group. Anonymous Sudan reportedly announced on its Telegram channels that it was hindering the Israeli operation while acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

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The official filing also states that global companies including Microsoft, ChatGPT, attacks. Additionally, Anonymous Sudan crashed the patient portals at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, causing ambulances to go elsewhere. This life-threatening step ultimately led to the Omer brothers being charged with computer interference and attempted, knowingly and negligently causing serious bodily injury or death. A press release added that the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California captured the group’s powerful distributed denial of service (DDoS) hacking tool.

Who are these Sudanese brothers, the alleged leaders of the group Anonymous Sudan?

Although not much has been revealed about the Sudanese nationals who allegedly lead the mysterious hacking group, the US government has revealed their age and ideology. The accused, Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer, is 22 years old, while his brother Alaa Salah Yusuuf Omer is 27 years old. The lawyer said her group promotes a “Sudanese nationalist ideology” and charges clients $600 or less to initiate major attacks.

The Omer brother’s alleged hacking operation was initially believed to have ties to pro-Russian political hackers. Ultimately, however, officials told the Post that despite their very politically motivated actions, they no longer believed that a third party or even a government would financially support their work. “What is unusual is the dominance of the ideological motive with interspersed financial resources,” Estrada said.

According to information from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the younger brother Ahmed Salah is said to have created the hacker group’s DDoS attack infrastructure. He was also allegedly responsible for posting messages on Telegram. Meanwhile, his older brother Alaa Salah was said to have been working on computer code and programming support. While both were charged with conspiracy to damage protected computers, Ahmed Salah was also charged with three counts of damaging protected computers. Prosecutors accused the brothers of using the group’s Distributed Cloud Attack Tool (DCAT) to launch DDoS hacking attacks, often lasting days.

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A conviction could result in Ahmed Salah facing a life sentence and Alaa Salah facing a maximum sentence of five years. They have been imprisoned abroad since their arrest in March. However, US officials remained silent when asked which country they were being held in.

So far, officials have only released Ahmed Salah’s photo from his passport, which is included in the separate criminal complaint USA against Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer dated March 20, 2024. Most of the information in the official document has been redacted.