US and allied law enforcement agencies around the world have seized the main website that a prolific Russian-speaking cyber gang has used to pressure its victims to pay ransoms, according to a notice posted on the website on Tuesday.
The FBI also developed a software key that allowed victims of the hackers to quietly unlock their computers, “saving multiple victims from ransom demands” worth about $68 million, the Justice Department said in a statement.
It’s a big blow to the well-oiled cybercriminal syndicate that, according to the Justice Department, has targeted over 1,000 victims around the world and extorted them for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hackers using the ransomware, known as ALPHV or BlackCat, have claimed a slew of attacks on US universities, health care providers and hotels in the last 18 months. Hackers claimed to have used ALPHV ransomware in at least one of a pair of high-profile ransomware attacks on Las Vegas casinos in September. The following month, hackers using ALPHV claimed to steal reams of patient data from a community hospital in Illinois.
Authorities seized the ALPHV website “in coordination” with the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, said the notice, which bore the seals of the FBI, US Secret Service and a slew of other law enforcement agencies from Australia to Europe to the United Kingdom.
Ransomware gangs use dark-web sites to try to pressure their victims into paying ransoms sometimes worth millions of dollars. If the victim refuses to pay, the hackers often leak data stolen from their network. A law enforcement seizure of a group’s website sometimes signals that investigators have broader access to the hackers’ core computer infrastructure and the move is part of a broader crackdown.
A different website that the ransomware gang set up recently remained online…
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