site.btaBulgarian Law Enforcers Help FBI Disrupt Cybercrimes that Earned USD 46 Mln from Ransom Payments

Logos of the agencies participating in the operation
US Department of Justice Photo

Sofia, January 28 (BTA) - Bulgaria's National Investigation
Service, prosecution service and Chief Directorate for Combating
 Organized Crime have taken part in an international operation
which disrupted a ransomware operation that made 46 million US
dollars from ransom payments, the investigators told a briefing
on Thursday.

The NetWalker ransom gang, active from March 2020, infected
companies with its ransomware and encrypted the data on their
computers. The victims were then sent a letter demanding a
ransom payment in cryptocurrency to stop the attackers from
publishing the stolen information. Those who paid ransom were
always given a decryption key. 

Bulgarian law enforcers seized servers which were used to host
two dark web portals for the NetWalker gang where victims of the
 attacks were redirected to communicate with the attackers and
negotiate ransom demands.

Investigator Svetoslav Vassilev from the National Investigation
Service said the cybercrimes affected many institutions and
hospitals. For instance, the University of San Francisco paid
the gang 1.1 million dollars to retrieve its hacked data.

NetWalker has impacted at least 305 victims from 27 countries.

The National Investigation Service noted that this was not the
first case on which they had cooperated with the FBI and that
they have been commissioned for more operations with US law
enforcers. RY/DD