On Wednesday, police in Ukraine reported the arrest of a father-son duo who were members of the cybercrime gang Lockbit. The arrests in Ukraine enabled law enforcement to seize 34 servers and over 200 cryptocurrency accounts.
The father and son duo, arrested in Ternopil, were wanted by authorities for extorting victims across a wide range of sectors using ransomware to execute the attacks. The FBI, the US Department of Justice, the NCA, and Europol coordinated to form a joint law enforcement operation codenamed Operation Cronos to bring down the cybercrime organization. The hackers targeted many state institutions, healthcare organizations, and private enterprises in France. Just before the arrests, Lockbit successfully extorted several hacking victims simultaneously by listing the names of hacked companies with a countdown timer to release the stolen data unless a ransom was paid. Following the arrests, authorities used Lockbit’s platform to leak data regarding the operations of Lockbit itself. The international law enforcement operation to disrupt Lockbit, led by Britain’s National Crime Agency and the FBI made arrests in both Ukraine and Poland.
