Joining Forces with Australia and the United Kingdom
On the 11th (local time), the U.S. Donald Trump administration announced sanctions against a local service provider responsible for a Russia-originated ransomware attack that caused damages worth $102 million (1.7 billion KRW), in cooperation with the United Kingdom and Australia.
The U.S. Department of State and Department of the Treasury stated that, in collaboration with Australia and the UK, they imposed sanctions on the Russian "bulletproof hosting" service provider ZServers, which supported the LockBit ransomware attack, as well as two Russian operators of the company.
The sanctioned parties will have all assets within the United States, assets owned or controlled by U.S. persons, and any profits derived therefrom frozen, and all transactions with U.S. persons are prohibited.
Bulletproof hosting is a type of server hosting where the provider does not care who the customers are, what is stored on the servers, or what activities are conducted using the servers.
The Department of State pointed out, "As a bulletproof hosting service provider, ZServers enabled cybercriminals to access servers and other computer infrastructure designed to resist law enforcement."
Bradley Smith, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Treasury Department, noted, "Ransomware actors and other cybercriminals rely on third-party network service providers like ZServers to enable their cyberattacks on U.S. and international infrastructure."
LockBit, which emerged around 2019, is estimated to have extorted approximately $120 million (about 1.7 billion KRW) from around 2,000 victims, accounting for more than 20% of the global ransomware ecosystem to date. They infected victims' networks with malicious code, encrypted data to lock it, and demanded ransom payments.
Additionally, the Treasury Department announced a total reward of $25 million (about 364 million KRW) for information related to LockBit ransomware actors. Up to $15 million is offered for owners, operators, administrators, and associates of the ransomware variant, and up to $10 million separately for ransomware administrator Dmitry Koroshev.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, which have joined forces for these sanctions, are members of AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, United States security partnership).
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