The Federal Bureau of Investigation took up to $2M value in digital assets connected to ransomware outbreaks carried out by Aleksandr Sikerin (a Russian citizen). The respective criminal is well-known for having an attachment with REvil (a notorious gang involved in cybercrimes having assaulted numerous businesses across the United States during recent times.
REvil comes to the front once again
CNN reported news that the confiscated crypto amount can be traced to be involved in the ransomware assaults carried out by the Sikerin (the person is a participant in the ransomware gang called REvil according to the United States’ law enforcement authorized personnel). His recent known location was in Russia’s St. Petersburg, which additionally indicates the connections thereof with the organization. The respective confiscation counted to be a part of the United States’ continuous effort to put a stop to the funding means for Eastern European as well as Russian crypto criminals after several recent attacks of this kind on the infrastructure of America.
The White House is consistently appealing to Vladimir Putin (the President of Russia) to take adequate measures that would restrict such bad people from operating within the Russian territories. In the recent month, a seizure of more than $6M in the payments of ransom was announced by the Justice Department as those were allegedly transacted to a Russian citizen called Yevgeny Polyanin who had a connection with REvil. The respective criminal has conducted up to 3,000 attacks of ransomware, including a few on Texas’ surrounding municipalities.
Notwithstanding the disclosure on the behalf of U.S. officials, Polyanin is even now operating the respective wicked activities. The exact location thereof is considered to be somewhere in Russia and more particularly, the Barnaul (a Siberian city). Although the FBI and the Secret Service track such criminals’ actions, the Treasury Department of the U.S. began punishing the firms helping such ransomware attacks. The earliest of them to face sanctions was Suex (a Czech Republic-based platform for crypto trading).
The major smash of REvil
At this summer’s start, JBS USA (an organization having annual sales of up to $50B for being the biggest meat processor across the globe) was attacked by REvil. As normally occurs during such attacks, the criminals locked sensitive information linked to JBS, which resulted in the distortion in the company’s production, and demanded over $11M in BTC as ransomware.