Ransomware operators in Ukraine have been apprehended by Law enforcement agencies. The joint exercise took place on the 28th day of September by officials from the French National Gendarmerie, the Ukrainian National Police, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), alongside participation from the Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre and the INTERPOL’s Cyber Fusion Centre.
“The criminals would deploy malware and steal sensitive data from these companies, before encrypting their files,” Europol said in a press statement on Monday. “They would then proceed to offer a decryption key in return for a ransom payment of several millions of euros, threatening to leak the stolen data on the dark web should their demands not be met.”
A total of seven properties were raided leading to the seizure of $375,000 in cash and two luxury vehicles as well as freezing of cryptocurrency assets worth $1.3 million.
According to the Ukrainian National Police, the demands by this suspects were hefty sums ranging from €5 to €70 million as part of their extortion spree, and are also linked to a gang that staged ransomware attacks against more than 100 different companies, causing damages upwards of $150 million.
Virus Software were deployed by breaking into remote working programs, with the intrusion staged through social engineering campaigns that delivered spam messages containing malicious content to corporate email inboxes, the agency added.