U.S Authorities Charge Russian National for $200M Ransomware Exploits

• Mikhail Pavlovich Matveev was a member of the Lockbit, Babuk, and Hive groups. 
• According to DOJ, Mateev used a variety of monikers when interacting with others online.

U.S. prosecutors have filed charges against a Russian national who they say was involved in several ransomware scams. That together brought in about $200 million, most of it in cryptocurrency. Hospitals, schools, and even police stations were hit by ransomware attacks.

Mikhail Pavlovich Matveev was a member of the Lockbit, Babuk, and Hive groups. According to Department of Justice data, they have collected about $200 million from victims after initially requesting more than $400 million. According to the Department, Mateev used a variety of monikers when interacting with others online.

Confidential Data at Risk

Mateev has been accused of participating in the attacks on the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, in April 2021. And a New Jersey non-profit behavioral healthcare organization in May 2022 using the Babuk ransomware.

When demanding money in the earlier instance, the criminal and his accomplices threatened to leak confidential information. Since December 2020, perpetrators of the Babuk ransomware have launched at least 65 assaults throughout the globe, seeking a total of $49 million in compensation.

According to Bloomberg, in January of 2022, cybersecurity writer Brian Krebs revealed that Mateev had admitted to having ties to the Darkside ransomware organizations. In 2021, Darkside launched a ransomware assault on the Colonial Pipeline, successfully extorting 63.7 BTC from the company’s owners.

Since the year 2021, ransomware assaults often make use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Moreover, Bitcoin payments cannot be retrieved by a bank or government like typical bank transactions, thus hackers may request money while remaining anonymous.