AlphV/BlackCat ransomware gang’s websites seized, FBI releases decrypter

By Howard Solomon for IT World Canada
Wednesday, December 20, 2023

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The FBI says that over the past 18 months, AlphV/BlackCat became the second most prolific ransomware-as-a-service variant in the world, based on the hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms paid by victims. Among the latest hit was the MGM Resort Las Vegas. After that hit, the gang said patrons shouldn’t blame it for losing money on reservations because closing the hotel and casino was management’s decision.

This interagency and multijurisdictional law enforcement operation “crowns a historical record of ransomware takedowns conducted in 2023,” commented Ilia Kolochenko, CEO of ImmuniWeb. “It is an excellent example of how well co-ordinated co-operation between the E.U., U.K. and U.S. authorities, with support from transnational agencies such as Europol, brings efficient results and slows down the surging pandemic of ransomware and interrelated hacking campaigns.

“Having said that, disruption of cybercrime’s infrastructure and selective arrests of identifiable cyber gang members is rarely sufficient. For example, a considerable number of seized hacking forums or marketplaces resurrected a few weeks after the seizure under a similar or new identity. Amid the global geopolitical uncertainty, many cybercrime groups safely operate from non-extraditable jurisdictions in absolute impunity.”

Unless nation-states manage to hammer out a truly global convention against cybercrime that would be ratified by all U.N. member states, he warned, the battle against organized cybercrime will be like fighting an immortal hydra. Read Full Article