Key Cybercriminals Behind Notorious Ransomware Families Arrested in Ukraine

A coordinated regulation enforcement procedure has led to the arrest of key folks in Ukraine who are alleged to be a part of quite a few ransomware techniques.

“On 21 November, 30 houses ended up searched in the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Rivne, and Vinnytsia, resulting in the arrest of the 32-year-previous ringleader,” Europol mentioned in a statement now. “4 of the ringleader’s most active accomplices were being also detained.”

The advancement comes extra than two years soon after 12 people today were apprehended in connection with the very same procedure. The persons are largely connected to LockerGoga, MegaCortex, and Dharma ransomware families.

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The suspects are believed to have qualified above 1,800 victims across 71 countries considering that 2019. They have also been accused of deploying the now-defunct Hive ransomware against high-profile organizations.

Some of the co-conspirators are believed to be included in penetrating IT networks by orchestrating brute-pressure attacks, SQL injections, and sending phishing email messages bearing malicious attachments in get to steal usernames and passwords.

Pursuing a thriving compromise, the attackers stealthily moved within the networks, whilst dropping additional malware and article-exploitation resources this sort of as TrickBot, Cobalt Strike, and PowerShell Empire to in the long run drop the file-encrypting malware.

The other customers of the cybercrime network are suspected to be in demand of laundering cryptocurrency payments produced by victims to decrypt their data files.

“The investigation determined that the perpetrators encrypted more than 250 servers belonging to significant firms, resulting in losses exceeding various hundreds of thousands and thousands of euros,” Europol explained.

The collaborative energy concerned authorities from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the U.S.

The disclosure will come much less than two weeks after Europol and Eurojust introduced the takedown of a prolific voice phishing gang by Czech and Ukrainian police which is believed to have netted tens of millions in unlawful gains by tricking victims into transferring money from their ‘compromised’ lender accounts to ‘safe’ bank accounts below their control.

It also arrives a thirty day period just after Europol unveiled that law enforcement and judicial authorities from eleven nations dismantled the infrastructure related with Ragnar Locker ransomware and arrested a “important goal” in France.

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