Russia Allegedly Took Down REVil, The Crypto Ransomware Group

Russia allegedly took down ReVil, the notorious crypto-ransomware group which has been at the center of attention in several crypto-related attacks as we reported in our crypto news.

The Federal Security Service which is the domestic intelligence service of Russia announced that it managed to dismantle the REVil ransomware group at the request of the US. Russia allegedly took down the group in a complex operation that detained a few of the group’s members. One day later, the court in Moscow also detained six individuals that were members of the group.

ReVil is a Russia-based hacker group that was responsible for several ransomware attacks where they demanded payments in crypto. The group orchestrated the ransomware attack against the biggest meat supplier in the USA, JBS which ended up with the company paying $11 million to the hackers. One month later, REVil demanded $70 million in BTC after attacking 200 US companies as well. The group broke into the Miami-based IT company Kaseya’s systems that allowed them to paralyze over a million systems:

“If anyone wants to negotiate about universal decryptor—our price is $70 million in Bitcoin.”

The ransomware group appeared to go dark after the Kaseya attacks but the hackers placed $1 million worth of BTC on the public Russian hacker forum as a part of the online recruitment flex. The strategy was a part of the group’s hunt for other teams that have more experience and skills in hacking fields. ReVil’s ransomware activity against American entities prompted the Biden administration to focus on combating the threat of these types of attacks.

The Biden administration was concerned about the threat presented by ransomware that it was elevated to a similar priority level as terrorism. Also during the summer, the US government set up a ransom task force that was tasked with combating cyberattacks and ransom payments. At the same time, President Biden warned Russia to take action on ransomware activity that came within its borders.

Also as we saw previously, Back in August, the Federal Bureau of Investigation-FBI confiscated more than $2 million worth of digital assets linked to ransomware attacks that were committed to the Russian resident Aleksandr Sikerin. The criminal was well-known for his connections to the cyber gang ReVil which assaulted plenty of US businesses in the past.