Early Tuesday morning, the dark-web site belonging to AlphV, a ransomware group that also goes by the name BlackCat, suddenly started displaying a banner that said it had been seized by the FBI as part of a coordinated law enforcement action.
An affidavit unsealed in a Florida federal court, meanwhile, revealed that the disruption involved FBI agents obtaining 946 private keys used to host victim communication sites.
The legal document said the keys were obtained with the help of a confidential human source who had "responded to an advertisement posted to a publicly accessible online forum soliciting applicants for Blackcat affiliate positions."
“In disrupting the BlackCat ransomware group, the Justice Department has once again hacked the hackers,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in Tuesday’s announcement.
“With a decryption tool provided by the FBI to hundreds of ransomware victims worldwide, businesses and schools were able to reopen, and health care and emergency services were able to come back online.
“The server and all of its data is still in possession of FBI—and ALPHV ain’t getting none of that back,” Liska, a threat researcher at security firm Recorded Future, wrote.
The original article contains 830 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!