Welcome to the Tech Mem Right Home for Tuesday, February 20th, 2024.

I'm Brian McCullough today.

Perhaps the biggest law enforcement action ever against a ransomware gang.

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Law enforcement from 11 countries including the FBI and the UK's National Crime Agency

have disrupted the Lockbit gang and seized 11,000 domains used to facilitate ransomware, quoting

Bloomberg.

A post on the gang's website Monday said it's now under the control of the UK agency, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies.

Lockbit has caused enormous harm and cost.

No longer, Graham Bigar, Director General of the National Crime Agency said at a press conference on Tuesday,

we have hacked the hackers, we have taken control of their infrastructure, seized their source code,

and obtained keys that will help victims decrypt their systems, end quote." Lockbit specializes in using malicious software known as ransomware to encrypt files on its

victims computers, then demanding payment to unlock the files.

The operation recruits hackers to conduct the cyber attacks

using Lockbit's tools and infrastructure. Lockbit gets a cut of any ransom extorted in

the hacks. The group was responsible for last year's attack on the U.S. arm of Industrial

and Commercial Bank of China, which disrupted the $26 billion U.S. Treasury market.

It also took down a website that Boeing uses to sell spare aircraft parts, software, and services.

Agents seized control of Lockbitt's equipment, including servers with victim data, file share servers, and communication servers that will help authorities return stolen

...