Ukrainian police have carried out nearly two dozen raids targeting alleged associates of a ransomware gang that it blamed for US$500 million in cyberattacks and extortion that hit the US and South Korea especially hard.
A police statement on Wednesday said that 21 raids were conducted on the homes of suspects affiliated with the Clop ransomware gang in Kiev and elsewhere, with computer equipment and about 5 million hryvnia (US$182,730) in cash seized.
Six defendants who carried out attacks on firms in the US and South Korean were detained, and face up to eight years in prison for contravening computer crime and money-laundering laws, police said, adding that the probe was ongoing.
The most potent ransomware gangs are tolerated by the Kremlin and out of reach of Western law enforcement, but Russia does not prosecute or extradite them.
Video posted by the Ukrainian police showed South Korean police taking part in this week’s raids, where cash, cellphones and vehicles were also seized.
Four South Korean firms had been hit by the gang with ransomware — which scrambles data that can only be unlocked with a software key obtained by paying the criminals — and paid ransoms, the police said.
The gang targeted US universities such as Stanford Medical School and the University of Maryland, they added.
Wednesday’s raid “is a continuation of the much more aggressive posture that law enforcement has taken against ransomware gangs this year,” Recorded Future analyst Allan Liska said. “It really does feel like law enforcement has figured out how to attack the ransomware scourge, and hopefully, will slow down the attacks.”
After last month’s attack on the Colonial Pipeline affected fuel shipments to the US east coast, the White House began taking ransomware criminals as seriously as it does terrorists, and many are lying low.
The author of the Colonial attack went into hiding and a different group, Avaddon, suddenly announced its retirement.
However, cybersecurity analysts say that such retirements are not new and can be a ruse to thwart law enforcement.
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