In September of 2025, children’s information and records were stolen from the London-based Kido nursery chain in the United Kingdom. A group of hackers that refer to themselves as “Radiant” posted the stolen information of the children which led to criminal and public backlash. The hackers “vowed to continue” posting the data until the Kido Schools paid the required ransom. The hackers could have never predicted the public backlash they were about to experience.
The cybergroup known as “Radiant” has gained control of roughly 8,000 children’s personal information including the child’s names, photos, addresses, date of birth, as well as notes that could include things like medication or other personal information according to BBC News. The attackers began to publish the information of these children on the dark web; they vowed to continue until somebody paid the ransom of roughly $800,000 in bitcoin. These hackers also personally threaten phone calls to the parents while trying to get their ransom paid. It was uncertain whether or not the ransom was granted, but this attack is unchangeable.
The public’s disgust of their actions caused these criminals to backtrack. According to CNN news, “Radiant has appeared to have backtracked, removing all the information online and saying they have deleted all the stolen data.” The hackers started by blurring out images while keeping the data up but eventually all information was taken offline due to skeptics who said the cyber-criminal had reached a “new low.” “We are sorry for hurting the kids” claimed the cyber-criminals according to CNN news. These criminals wanted to ‘comfort’ the parents by claiming all their children’s data was deleted. Finally, the cyber-criminals have realized that they crossed a moral line when a public outrage rose against them.
The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency discovered and “took down” LockBit but not without discovering that victim’s data had not been deleted from the criminal’s servers. It was discovered that the criminals gained access to the data by buying access to a staff’s computer which had been compromised by separate hackers called the “initial access broker”. Copycat criminals have tried similar ransom attempts in Germany and Ireland. In the end, Kido refused to pay the ransom and the hackers lost money in their attack attempt. Additionally, the crime agency faced severe public backlash for their actions.
