Cybersecurity: Russian services disconnect the dreaded REvil hacker group

“Dóbry den' (Hello), reality is catching up with you.

An operation by the Russian security services (FSB) and police has incapacitated 14 members of the REvil hacker group, considered to be the most formidable group of cybercriminals in the form of ransomware.

These pioneers of data blackmail had launched an extortion movement that had spread widely to other computer hacker groups and their affiliate networks.

Searches carried out “at the request of the competent American authorities” targeted 25 addresses in five Russian regions, in particular in the capital Moscow and in Saint Petersburg, the second city of the country, allowing the seizure of the equivalent of 426 million rubles (about €4.8 million) and 20 luxury cars, according to the FSB press release.

The investigators also published a video of the muscular arrests.

15 members of REvil have been arrested by the Russian authorities.

REvil, once dubbed the "Crown prince of Ransomware", was responsible for the Kaseya supply chain attack, and many other high-profile breaches.

Footage courtesy of the FSB.

pic.twitter.com/7ldAAPwDYg

— vx-underground (@vxunderground) January 14, 2022

In early July 2021, this group of Russian-speaking hackers, also called Sodinokibi, claimed responsibility for the ransomware attack targeting the American computer company Kaseya.

Joe Biden then asked, during a telephone exchange, Vladimir Putin to act against the attacks carried out from Russia, under penalty of seeing the United States take “the necessary measures”.

Authorities in Europe and the United States announced in November the arrest of seven hackers in an international operation that targeted REvil and the ransomware group GandCrab.