Illustration: JMiks | Shutterstock
Two Russian individuals, Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov and Mikhail Vasiliev, have admitted to participating in over 20 LockBit ransomware attacks affecting victims worldwide, including the United States. The two were acting as affiliates of the ransomware gang, identifying and breaching vulnerable systems on victim networks, stealing sensitive data, and deploying ransomware to encrypt files on affected systems.
Court documents for Astamirov state that he deployed LockBit at least a dozen times between 2020 and 2023, affecting companies in Virginia, Japan, France, Scotland, and Kenya, collecting at least $1.9 million in ransom. Vasilev wasn’t far behind either, deploying the infamous ransomware another dozen times between 2021 and 2023, which affected businesses in New Jersey, Michigan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He also collected nearly $500,000 in ransom payments as per his court documentation.
Astamirov was arrested in Arizona in June 2023, and Vasilev was extradited to the US in the same month. The former has also been sentenced to four years in prison by an Ontario court for his involvement with the ransomware gang. Additionally, both Astamirov and Vasilev now face a maximum of 25 and 45 years in prison. The court proceedings of the two LockBit associates bring the total up to six of the gang’s members being charged in the US.
In February 2024, law enforcement agencies from 11 countries conducted Operation Cronos, which disrupted the Lockbit infrastructure. The operation also led to the arrest of two individuals, Artur Sungatov and Ivan Gennadeivich Kondratiev, associated with the cybercrime gang in Poland and Ukraine, and the seizure of over 200 crypto wallets used by the group.
The identity of LockBit’s admin, known as ‘LockBitSupp’ and ‘putinkrab’ has also been revealed. The admin turns out to be a Russian man named Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev and has had sanctions put on him, in addition to 26 charges from the FBI, which is continuing efforts to bring Khoroshev to justice in the US.
The gang has been a pain for law enforcement agencies worldwide, carrying out ransomware attacks on big corporations and often being successful. Recently, the FBI got hold of over 7,000 decryption keys for the ransomware to help victims.
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