Cyber Crime
Interpol & Europol’s 4-Year Joint Operation Comes To End; Bust Global Ransomware Cybercrime Gang, 7 Arrested
NEW DELHI: The COVID-19 outbreak sparked an increase in cybercrime around the world, but such crimes have been wreaking damage on major corporations for much longer. Quicksand, a four-year transatlantic effort involving 19 law enforcement organisations from 17 nations, achieved a breakthrough. Interpol made seven important arrests, dismantling a global network of ransomware cybercrime.
The operation, which was coordinated from INTERPOL’s Cyber Fusion Centre in Singapore, targeted significant ransomware families such as GandCrab and Revil-Sodinokibi, as well as the criminals who perpetrated them.
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These groups employed malware to infiltrate company and private networks, encrypt their contents, and then use that as leverage to blackmail companies and individuals into paying large ransoms.
According to an official Interpol release, the suspects apprehended in the operation are suspected of demanding more than EUR 200 million in ransom and infecting tens of thousands of computers with ransomware.
Global Coalition
According to Interpol, the operation’s success was made possible by a collaboration between the public and commercial sectors. Trend Micro, CDI, Kaspersky Lab, and Palo Alto Networks all helped with the investigations by exchanging information and technical knowledge. KPN, McAfee, and S2W provided INTERPOL and its member countries with cyber and malware technological expertise. Bitdefender offered custom decryption tools to crack ransomware and allow victims to retrieve files, assisting over 1,400 businesses in saving almost EUR 475 million in potential ransom.
With the global financial impact of ransom payments from ransomware families estimated to be in the billions of dollars and thousands of victims worldwide, INTERPOL’s private partners and member countries collaborate to provide assistance to victims of the ransomware.
According to Chainalysis research, criminals made USD 350 million in ransomware payments in 2020, a 311 percent increase in one year. According to Palo Alto Networks, the average ransom payment grew by 171% within the same time period.
Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Kuwait, the United Kingdom and The United States were among those who took part.
ALSO READ: Emotet: World’s Most Dangerous Malware Disrupted In Global Police Action
Multiple Arrests Worldwide
- Korean law enforcement to arrest three suspects in February, April and October;
- Kuwaiti authorities to arrest a man thought to have carried out ransomware attacks using the GandGrab ransomware;
- Romanian authorities to arrest two individuals suspected of ransomware cyber-attacks and believed to be responsible for 5,000 infections as well as half a million euros profit in ransom payments;
- The arrest of a man believed to be responsible for the Kaseya ransomware attack, thought to have been carried out last July by the REvil gang with more than 1,500 people and 1,000 businesses affected worldwide.
“Ransomware has become too large of a threat for any entity or sector to address alone; the magnitude of this challenge urgently demands united global action which INTERPOL can uniquely facilitate as a neutral and trusted global partner,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock.
“Policing needs to harness the insights of the cyber security industry to identify and disrupt cyber criminals as part of a true coalition, working together to reduce the global impact of ransomware cybercrime,” added the Secretary General.
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