Category: Conti Ransomware Group

Conti Ransomware gang has announced that it is going to shut down its digital operations and will come as a rebranded version split into multiple groups soon. According to the intelligence update provided by security vendor AdvIntel, the group was forced to take this action because of internal conflicts developed in its syndicate after its announcement to support Russia in its invasion in Ukraine.

From February this year or just after a few days after the start of the Russian war with Ukraine, the notorious organization announced its support to Putin and launched several cyber attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine.

This did not go down well with some gang members, who not only retaliated the actions, but leaked classical info about the gang operations to law enforcement agencies in UK and USA.

After the gang launched a ransomware attack on the government of Costa Rica, Biden led the government announced a $10m reward to those who disclose details about the hacking group and also ordered the Costa Rican government not to pay a ransom to hackers.

Hence, a strict vigil started on a digital note, thus blocking Conti from receiving payments and launching any further attacks.

Thence, in this way, the Conti Ransomware group seems to have dug its own grave and is repenting with its past move of supporting Russia in its invasion of Kyiv.

Note 1- Conti has assured that it will return by splitting its self into multiple ransomware distribution groups and this time it will target large-scale organizations that have the potential to pay double-digit figures in millions.

Note 2- AdvIntel announced the shutdown of Conti on May 20th, 2022, i.e. Friday, and hinted that the gang might bounce back within a couple of months to target large organizations in the Christmas season this year.

 

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The Government of the United States has announced a $15 million reward to those who provide tip-off’s related to Conti Ransomware Group whereabouts and details related to their future attack campaigns.

FBI issued an estimate that the year 2021 witnessed a 60% rise in ransomware attacks launched by Conti Gang and the reward it might have received from its 1k victimized targets is $150 million.

Ned Price, the State Department’s spokesperson, said that the reward announcement shows the Biden led government’s commitment to blocking the future exploitation by cyber criminals through ransomware attacks.

To those interested in knowing more about the reward, here’s a gist. The reward will be set to be split into two- the $10m for offering info related to the gang members and $5m for leading to arrests of those conspiring with Conti.

Second is the news related to a ransomware attack launched on a US manufacturer of agricultural machinery named AGCO.

The ransomware gang that launched the attack is yet to be identified, but reports are in that it could be a notorious gang related to Russian Intelligence and could have launched the attack as AGCO donated a $50,000 fund to Ukraine civilians suffering from Russian war invasion.

The ransomware attack news came in when the FBI announced a week back that the whole of the farming and agriculture sector in America was vulnerable to cyber attacks launched by state funded hacking groups from Kremlin.

 

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