Russia says cybercrime group REvil was removed at US request

The Russian intelligence services (FSB) cybercriminal team launched an operation against REvil, which resulted in a number of allegations and the identification of all members of the network. They announced in a press release Friday, January 14th. This action has been taken “At the Call of Talented American Officials”, Who have been “Results reported”, The company added.

The REvil group (also known as Sodinogipi), which emerged in 2019, is one of the largest criminal networks in the world to carry out ransomware attacks. With these malicious tools used in the computer network of a company or administration, they encrypt the contents of the computers, disable the network and demand a refund in cryptocurrency in exchange for the encryption key.

In its statement, the FSB said it had raided 25 addresses associated with 14 suspects: 426 million rubles (9 4.9 million), $ 600,000 and ,000 500,000 in cryptocurrency wallets and twenty luxury cars. The agency points out that many have been arrested, not to mention their exact number, which has disrupted the entire cybercrime group.

Many large-scale attacks

This criminal organization has demanded a large number of victims An Apple subsidiary, Quanta, Or US subsidiary of JBS, a Brazilian meat group. REvil, suspected of being the expression of another ransomware operator GandCrab, is being investigated by the FBI in the United States and the Cyber ​​Crime Squad in France (BL2C, within the jurisdiction of the Paris Police). Procedures targeting these types of criminal organizations are pervasive: REvil operators rent out their malware to “affiliates”, associates working with various groups and specialists in infiltrating networks. In October, the media Time And BR24 also exposed German federal investigators Nikolai Kay was identified. (Name has been changed), a Russian citizen believed to be one of REvil’s thought leaders.

Several police operations in recent months have targeted REvil “affiliates”. On November 8, the United States announced the arrest in Poland of Yaroslav Vasinsky, a Ukrainian suspected of carrying out several attacks on behalf of the group in 2019 and 2021. One of the large-scale attacks on the American company Casey. Another Ukrainian, Evgeniy Igorevich Polyanin, was charged at the same time, but was not arrested. In particular, he is suspected of attacking nearly 40 municipalities in Texas in 2019. On November 8, Europol announced the arrest of two suspects in Romania and another in Kuwait, with four arrests in previous months in South Korea and Europe.