US authorities announced Thursday the dismantling of one of the main ransomware attack networks in the world, dubbed “Hive”, accused of attacking 1,500 entities in the United States and elsewhere.
“Last night, the Department of Justice dismantled an international ransomware ring that extorted or attempted to extort millions of dollars from its victims (…), known as Hive,” Minister Merrick Garland said. during a press conference. “Cybercrime is an ever-evolving threat. But as I’ve said before, the Department of Justice will spare no resources in identifying and bringing to justice anyone, anywhere, who targets the United States with a ransomware attack. We will continue to work both to prevent these attacks and to provide support to the victims who have been targeted. And with our international partners, we will continue to disrupt the criminal networks that deploy these attacks. ” he added.
According to the “Department of Justice”, since the end of July 2022, the FBI has penetrated the computer networks of the “Hive” group, captured its “decryption keys” and offered them to victims around the world, thus avoiding the victims to have to pay the approximately 130 million dollars in ransom demanded.
The FBI has provided a total of more than 300 decryption keys to the ransomers’ victims since last summer. Additionally, the FBI distributed over 1,000 additional decryption keys to previous Hive victims.