Up to $10 million is being promised for information that will help find him and other leaders of the LockBit hacker-extortionist group.

The USA, Great Britain and Australia imposed sanctions against Russian Dmitry Khoroshev, calling him the leader hacker group LockBit. This was reported in press service of the US Treasury.

“The United States has designated Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev, a Russian citizen and leader of the Russia (*aggressor country)-based LockBit group, on the sanctions list for his role in the development and distribution of the LockBit ransomware,” the department said in a statement. The Ministry of Finance added that similar measures against Khoroshev were taken by the UK and Australia.

The US State Department also announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of key leaders of the LockBit group and those involved in its activities.

The LockBit group gained fame in 2021. It uses a ransomware program of the same name that encrypts files on its victims’ computers and demands payment to unlock it. The American division of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the British Post Office and the Boeing Company were also subject to similar hacker attacks.

In February, Bloomberg wrote about the hacking of LockBit’s infrastructure, including sites that the group used to make payments using ransomware. The FBI, citing statements from hackers, reported that 1.6 thousand US residents and 2 thousand people in other countries became victims of cyber attacks.

In 2023, 20-year-old Ruslan Astamirov from Chechnya was arrested in the United States in the LockBit case. He became the third Russian citizen accused of involvement in such cyber attacks. Previously detained in Canada Mikhail Vasilievand the US State Department put him on the wanted list Mikhail Matveev.

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Russian hackers wanted by the US

Original of this material

© Lenta.Ru, 05/08/2024, the United States announced a $10 million reward for information about the Russian Khoroshev. Which other Russian hackers are they looking for in the United States?

Marina Sovina

[…] Khoroshev is not the only Russian hacker for whom the United States has offered a reward for his help in catching him. Last May, the US Department of Justice put the famous Russian hacker Mikhail Matveev on the wanted list, and the State Department offered a $10 million reward for information that would help catch him. He is suspected of having connections with three cybercriminal groups at once (Babuk, LockBit and Hive). All of them operated ransomware programs that infected the systems of victims (usually large companies), blocked access to them, and then demanded a ransom for unlocking them.

At the same time, the United States accused Russia (*aggressor country) of becoming a “safe haven” for cybercriminals: for more than a year now, Matveev has not hidden his face and does not deny connections with the largest groups of “Russian hackers.” […]

In June of the same year, Russian citizen Ruslan Astamirov was arrested in the United States on charges of involvement in cyber extortion. As noted by the Ministry of Justice, 20-year-old Astamirov carried out at least five hacker attacks in the United States and other countries using the LockBit malware.

Earlier, the US Department of Justice filed formal charges of fraud and money laundering Denis Kulkov and promised those who would contribute to his arrest a similar reward. Investigators consider him the founder of the Try2Check service, which could be used to check the validity of stolen credit cards.

Another well-known figure on the list was Evgeniy Polyanin, who in the United States is considered one of the leaders of the defeat at the beginning of 2021 REvil groups. American investigators believe he was involved in extorting more than $13 million.

In addition, American journalists declassified one of the most famous Russian hackers. Employees of the authoritative American publication Wired spent a year and a half studying a major data leak from the subsoil. hacker group Trickbot, which in the West is traditionally associated with Russia (*aggressor country) and even directly with the Kremlin. As a result of the investigation, they came to the conclusion that the leader of the group is 41-year-old Maxim Galochkin from Abakan, who allegedly hides under the nickname Bentley.