The US Department of Justice arrested a Canadian Citizen born in Russia for spreading Lockbit ransomware. Michael Vasiliev, a 32-year-old, was arrested by the law enforcement department and will soon be extradited to the United States for further prosecution.
Details are in that the arrest was made after a 2-3 years long investigation concluded and Mr. Vasilev was found guilty of malware spread and wealth creation illegally.
Lisa O Monaco, the Deputy Attorney General, announced the arrest as a victory to the department of justice and added that it should act as a warning sign to all those indulging in cyber-crime.
LockBit has encrypted hundreds of databases of companies belonging to education, healthcare and energy sectors and in May last year, the said crime group was involved in locking down the servers of Colonial Pipeline and JBS Meat in an attack a month later.
Cybersecurity Insiders sources report that the arrest was made on October 26th of this year in Ontario and Europol in coordination with US FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police made the legal move. Two firearms, 30 external hard drives, two online accounts leading to Google directories, and €400,000 worth of cryptocurrency were seized from the criminal.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Security Threat Intelligence teams have discovered that a Russian hacking group, IRIDIUM, funded by Kremlin’s military intelligence, was behind the spread of Prestige Ransomware on Ukraine and Poland private and public networks.
In other news, the US Health Department HHS has issued a warning to all organizations involved in the healthcare sector against the spread of Venus ransomware. The health service offering organization stated that the said file encrypting malware has so far targeted around 13 businesses till date and from mid-august was working in lines with a ransomware as a service model, serving the needy for a premium and making additionally money from victims who failed to pay a ransom.
