The US Department of Justice reported on the completion of a joint operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, during which the international extortion group Hive was eliminated. Hackers attacked schools, banks and hospitals in more than 80 countries. Since June 2021, approximately 1,500 institutions around the world have fallen victim to them, and ransomware has earned more than $100 million in cryptocurrencies.
The FBI managed to break into the network in July 2022 and seize over 1,300 decryption keys to help victims recover their funds.. Law enforcement officers in Germany and the Netherlands coordinated the operation – they took control of the services and websites of scammers, which, in fact, helped to destroy Hive.
The ransomware worked according to an ordinary scheme: they stole confidential data from emails, documents and files, encrypted them, and then demanded a ransom in bitcoins. If the victim refused to pay, the data was published on the dark web.
Earlier, the analytical company Chainalysis published statistics according to which the revenue from ransomware attacks fell by 40% from $766 million to $457 million since 2021.. Experts explained this by the fact that more and more ransomware victims refused to pay the scammers.