Britain And US Moved Against Ransomware Gangs By Sanctioning Seven Individuals
The United Kingdom and the United States sanctioned seven people affiliated with a single network behind the Conti and Ryuk ransomware gangs as well as the Trickbot banking trojan.
The sanctions are portrayed as the first significant move in a new campaign of concerted movement between Britain and the United States. The countries are gearing up to make more moves against threat actors before the year runs out.
The Ransomware Gangs Identities Goes Live
As per the rules, the sanctions come with financial restrictions as these individuals won’t be able to access their assets. They are also unable to travel to the UK, US, or related areas.
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Vitaly Kovalev (aka Bentley) with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and eight counts of bank fraud.
Financial sanctions marks do not include the entirety of the network, although the authorities failed to divulge operational justifications for sanctioning them and not others. They are:
- Vitaliy Kovalev, aka Bentley
- Mikhail Isktritskiy, aka Tropa
- Valentin Karyagin, aka Globus
- Maksim Michailov, aka Baget
- Dmitry Pleshevskiy, aka Iseldor
- Valery Sedletski, aka Strix
- Ivan Vakhromeyev, aka Ivanalert/Mushroom
Notably, the joint move is the first public attribution by Western governments officially linking the Conti and Ryuk ransomware gangs and the Trickbot banking trojan to a central criminal organization.
Moreover, it is the first time that OFSI handed out sanctions against a ransomware group amidst a growing number of high-profile aggression in the country, potentially implying that companies who make an extortion ransom could breach the law.
Cybercriminals Alleged Stable Link To Russia
The U.K. government forbade availing funds readily to the individuals such as settling ransomware, including in crypto assets or other means.
However, The public guidance around the sanctions exhorts companies to notify the attacks and any settlements to Action Fraud and OFSI as a means to de-risk, essentially also helping to address an unbearable lack of visibility into the true scale of the criminal industry.
The seven criminals are all established in Russia, which constitutionally does not extradite its citizens, making arrests by Western law enforcement exceedingly unlikely — even aside from the geopolitical environment following Russia’s aggression on Ukraine. Suspects are periodically picked up when they travel abroad.