Ransomware: two suspects arrested in Ukraine

Two men suspected of corporate ransomware attacks were arrested last week in Ukraine during a coordinated operation between the French gendarmerie, the American FBI and the European police agency Europol, we learned on Tuesday. from corroborating sources.

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"The organized criminal group is suspected of having committed a series of targeted attacks against large companies in Europe and North America from April 2020"

using malware, reports Europol in a statement. Sensitive data was stolen from companies and files were encrypted, the statement said. To recover them, companies had to pay

under penalty of seeing them broadcast on the dark web, he added. According to a source close to the investigation, the network targeted in particular French companies, demanding ransoms of 5 to 70 million euros.

Cooperation between the Ukrainian police, six gendarmes from the Center for Combating Digital Crime (C3N), four investigators from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), two specialists from the Europol European Cybercrime Center and an Interpol officer , the international organization for police cooperation, resulted in the arrest of two suspects on September 28 in Ukraine.

During the seven searches,

according to the Europol press release.

Assets in the amount of 1.3 million euros were also frozen.

Open investigation

After ransomware attacks in France, an investigation for

was opened on September 29, 2020, said the Paris prosecutor's office, requested by AFP.

The investigations were entrusted to the gendarmes of the C3N, said the prosecution.

Digital crime experts are still exploiting computer files to identify other protagonists in the network, the close source said.

The outcome of the arrest of the two suspects was not disclosed.