Two cybersecurity employees plead guilty to carrying out ransomware attacks

Two erstwhile labor astatine cybersecurity firms — 1 of whom was a ransomware negotiator — person pleaded blameworthy to carrying retired a bid of ransomware attacks successful 2023. The Department of Justice announced the blameworthy pleas connected Tuesday, saying 40-year-old Ryan Goldberg and 36-year-old Kevin Martin extorted $1.2 cardinal successful Bitcoin from a aesculapian instrumentality institution and targeted respective others.

Goldberg, Martin, and an unnamed co-conspirator were indicted for the attacks successful October, which progressive utilizing ALPHV / BlackCat ransomware to encrypt and bargain information from their victims. As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, Martin and the 3rd conspirator worked arsenic ransomware negotiators astatine Digital Mint, a cybercrime and incident consequence company, while Goldberg was an incident consequence head astatine Sygnia Cybersecurity Services.

ALPHV / BlackCat is simply a hacker group that uses a ransomware-as-a-service model, pinch the developers who support the malware often taking a trim of stolen costs from the cybercriminals who usage it to target victims. In 2023, the FBI developed a decryption tool designed to retrieve information from victims of ALPHV / BlackCat, which has been linked to high-profile attacks connected companies like Bandai Namco, MGM Resorts, Reddit, and UnitedHealth Group.

The DOJ’s indictment claims Goldberg, Martin, and the co-conspirator utilized the ransomware successful an effort to extort millions of dollars from victims passim the US, including a pharmaceutical company, a doctor’s office, an engineering company, and a drone manufacturer.

“These defendants utilized their blase cybersecurity training and acquisition to perpetrate ransomware attacks — the very type of crime that they should person been moving to stop,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the DOJ’s Criminal Division says successful a statement. “The Department of Justice is committed to utilizing each devices disposable to place and apprehension perpetrators of ransomware attacks wherever we person jurisdiction.”

Goldberg and Martin pleaded blameworthy to 1 count of “conspiracy to obstruct, delay, aliases impact commerce aliases the activity of immoderate article aliases commodity successful commerce by extortion.” Their sentencing is scheduled for March 12th, 2026, wherever they’ll look up to 20 years successful prison.