They stole information from global companies and demanded up to $70 million: cyber police with foreign colleagues neutralized the hacker group
Ukrainian cyberpolice, together with foreign colleagues, neutralized a transnational hacker group.
Operatives of the Cyber Police Department together with colleagues from Europol, Eurojust, with the involvement of law enforcement officers from France, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Japan and Canada conducted a large-scale international operation to neutralize the dangerous hacker group, which since 2020 has attacked 168 international companies in Europe and America with the ransomware virus.
The attackers infected servers with malware and stole information from companies. Subsequently, the data on the victims' computers were encrypted and made unusable.
For the restoration of access, members of the group demanded between $5 million and $70 million in cryptocurrency. In case of non-payment of ransom or appeal to law enforcement, they threatened to distribute the stolen data on the darknet.
The organizers clearly distributed the responsibilities between the participants of the group. Individual members were responsible for gathering information and finding vulnerabilities in the victims' cybersecurity architecture. They transmitted the collected information to associates with computer programming skills. These, in turn, were in charge of creating and modifying malware with the aim of further damaging a specific company.
As part of a joint international investigation, Ukrainian law enforcement officers conducted mass searches on the territory of Kyiv in the premises of one of the members of the group. Removed laptops, mobile phones and electronic media.
Meanwhile, one of the malware developers has been detained in France. Recently, his accomplices were searched in Spain, Latvia and the Czech Republic.
Currently, the French competent authorities are investigating criminal proceedings on the facts of unauthorized access and stay in automated data processing systems, unauthorized entry and replacement of data into an automated data processing system, interference with the operation of the automatic data processing system, extortion (extortion) as part of organized crime grouping, money laundering (legalization) as part of an organized criminal group, which are provided for by a number of articles of the Criminal Code of France.
National Police of Ukraine
