Members of the REvil ransomware gang are being arrested!

[thewayne]

The U.S. government are offering up to a $10,000,000 reward for info leading to the arrest of key members of the group! $5mil for affiliate members!

Recently a member was arrested in Poland and $6mil of cryptocurrency was recovered. He's in prison awaiting extradition to the USA!

The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.

Krebs is learning that it seems any organization that is ten years old starts getting really lax about their internal cybersecurity. These guys were brought down because they didn't compartmentalize their hacker identities from their social media identities. People linked them, reported them to the authorities, and now they're behind bars!

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/11/revil-ransom-arrest-6m-seizure-and-10m-reward/

Comments

[silveradept]

Oh, good. Ransomware is terrible, and the more of them that get convicted and have their assets seized, the better. (Also, OPSEC is hard, but I doubt there are all that many criminals that realize this and plan accordingly.)

[thewayne]

It's not difficult to do OpSec - for the short term.  But invariably they're going to get lazy over time.  It takes a lot of self-discipline to maintain it over the long-term, and the longer you're successful, the more overconfident you become, which increases the chance you get sloppy.

[silveradept]

Something something getting Capone for tax evasion rather than the more serious crimes. But yes, long term planning and avoiding feeling like you're so good you can't get caught is difficult, especially if boating about what you've done, and providing evidence thereof, is how you build reputation and possibly get yourself hired for more difficult and lucrative jobs.