LockBit administrator sentenced to almost four years in prison after guilty plea

An administrator for the LockBit ransomware gang has been sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to eight charges in a Canadian court last month.
Mikhail Vasiliev, a 34-year-old Canadian-Russian dual national, has been in legal peril since he was first arrested in October 2022 at his home in Bradford, Ontario, as part of an international operation involving European, U.S. and Canadian authorities.
He has faced charges from both the U.S. Department of Justice and Canadian authorities since his arrest.
Vasiliev pled guilty to eight charges involving cyber extortion, weapons possession and more.
The charges related to ransomware attacks launched against three Canadian companies in 2021 and 2022.
CTV News also reported that Vasiliev has also consented to being extradited to the U.S. - where he is facing several charges unsealed in a New Jersey court in 2022 for his role in LockBit.
The U.S. charges include conspiracy to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit ransom demands.
He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted.
He is one of only two LockBit suspects known, by name, to be in law enforcement custody.
Ruslan Astamirov is awaiting trial in the U.S. on charges filed last June related to deploying LockBit against victims in Florida, Kenya, France and Japan.
Last month, an international law enforcement operation brought down the ransomware gang's infrastructure and identified hundreds of affiliates involved in the group.
The U.S. Justice Department also unsealed indictments of Russian nationals Artur Sungatov and Ivan Kondratiev - an infamous hacker also known as Bassterlord.
LockBit was the most prolific ransomware operation in the world before its takedown, launching thousands of attacks against governments, businesses and organizations in dozens of countries.
The gang offered its ransomware as a service, providing its platform to customers for a fee since 2019.
Researchers at Recorded Future attributed nearly 2,300 attacks to this threat actor.
The group received more than $120 million in ransom payments since it began operating.
The gang has tried to give the illusion that it is still operating, posting data stolen from organizations before the law enforcement takedown.
HHS to investigate UnitedHealth and ransomware attack on Change Healthcare.
Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014.
Before moving back to New York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia.


This Cyber News was published on therecord.media. Publication date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 18:00:43 +0000


Cyber News related to LockBit administrator sentenced to almost four years in prison after guilty plea

Hubris May Have Contributed to Downfall of Ransomware Kingpin LockBit - For all its vaunted success, the LockBit ransomware operation appears to have already been beset by problems when an international law enforcement effort led by the UK's National Crime Agency shut it down this week. Though it's likely that the dozens ...
8 months ago Darkreading.com
LockBit administrator sentenced to almost four years in prison after guilty plea - An administrator for the LockBit ransomware gang has been sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to eight charges in a Canadian court last month. Mikhail Vasiliev, a 34-year-old Canadian-Russian dual national, has been in legal peril ...
8 months ago Therecord.media
U.S. Joins U.K. to Seize LockBit Site, Disrupt Massive Ransomware Variant - The U.S. Department of Justice has partnered with the United Kingdom and international law enforcement partners in London today to announce the disruption of the LockBit ransomware group. The LockBit ransomware group is one of the most active ...
9 months ago Americansecuritytoday.com
LockBit Ransomware Affiliate Sentenced to Prison in Canada - A Russian-Canadian national was sentenced to nearly four years in prison in Canada for his role in the LockBit ransomware operation. The man, Mikhail Vasiliev, 34, was arrested in October 2022 in his home in Bradford, Ontario. In February 2024, he ...
8 months ago Securityweek.com
Former FTX executive Salame sentenced to over 7 years in prison - Another former executive of FTX has been jailed over his part in the cryptocurrency giant's implosion in late 2022. Ryan Salame, who was the co-CEO of FTX's Bahamian subsidiary, was sentenced to 90 months in prison, US federal prosecutors said. ...
5 months ago Packetstormsecurity.com
Police arrest four suspects linked to LockBit ransomware gang - Previous arrests of Lockbit ransomware actors (some of them already charged for various offenses) include Mikhail Pavlovich Matveev (aka Wazawaka) in May 2023, Artur Sungatov and Ivan Gennadievich Kondratiev (aka Bassterlord) in February 2024, and ...
1 month ago Bleepingcomputer.com
Feds Seize LockBit Ransomware Websites, Offer Decryption Tools, Troll Affiliates - U.S. and U.K. authorities have seized the darknet websites run by LockBit, a prolific and destructive ransomware group that has claimed more than 2,000 victims worldwide and extorted over $120 million in payments. Instead of listing data stolen from ...
9 months ago Krebsonsecurity.com
JFK Airport Taxi Hackers Sentenced to Prison - Two cab drivers accused of being involved in a hacking scheme targeting the taxi dispatch system at John F. Kennedy International Airport have been sentenced to prison, the US Justice Department announced on Monday. The individuals are Daniel Abayev, ...
9 months ago Packetstormsecurity.com
LockBit Ransomware Targets German Energy Agency Dena - Dena, the reputed German Energy Agency, is said to have fallen victim to the notorious LockBit ransomware group. The Dena cyberattack was revealed through a post on the threat actor's dark web platform, where they disclose data breach incidents and ...
11 months ago Heimdalsecurity.com
Ex-Ubiquiti Programmer Admits to Attempting to Blackmail Company - Nickolas Sharp, a former employee of Ubiquiti, a networking device maker, pleaded guilty today to stealing a large amount of data from the company's network and attempting to extort them while pretending to be an anonymous hacker and whistleblower. ...
1 year ago Bleepingcomputer.com
Trickbot Malware Developer Pleads Guilty - A 40-year-old Russian national, Vladimir Dunaev, pleaded guilty for developing and deploying Trickbot malware. Trickbot, a suite of malware tools, targeted hospitals and businesses, causing millions in losses. Trickbot is a sophisticated modular ...
11 months ago Gbhackers.com
Law enforcement agencies arrest 4 alleged LockBit members | TechTarget - Authorities arrested four suspected members of the LockBit ransomware gang during the third phase of the international law enforcement effort dubbed Operation Cronos. Operation Cronos' efforts to disrupt the LockBit ransomware gang continue as ...
1 month ago Techtarget.com
LockBit attacks continue via ConnectWise ScreenConnect flaws - Exploitation of two critical ConnectWise vulnerabilities continues to mount, with many attacks attributed to ransomware gangs such as LockBit. Last month, ConnectWise disclosed an authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-1708, that ...
8 months ago Techtarget.com
Police arrested four new individuals linked to the LockBit ransomware operation - “Europol supported a new series of actions against LockBit actors, which involved 12 countries and Eurojust and led to four arrests and seizures of servers critical for LockBit’s infrastructure.” reads the press release published by ...
1 month ago Securityaffairs.com
US readies prison cell for another Russian Trickbot dev The Register - Another member of the Trickbot malware crew now faces a lengthy prison sentence amid US law enforcement's ongoing search for its leading members. Russian national Vladimir Dunaev, 40, faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison for his involvement ...
11 months ago Go.theregister.com
Cloud Engineer Sentenced for Deleting Ex-employer's Code Logs - San Francisco resident Miklos Daniel Brody, 38, took revenge on his former employer, a bank, by hacking valuable computer code and damaging the bank's cloud system. After stealing information from and purposefully damaging a protected computer, he ...
11 months ago Gbhackers.com
Cops dismantled LockBit before latest variant hit market The Register - Law enforcement's disruption of the LockBit ransomware crew comes as the criminal group was working on bringing a brand-new variant to market, research reveals. As part of the daily LockBit leaks this week, Trend Micro's report on the group, ...
8 months ago Go.theregister.com
LockBit claim about hacking U.S. Federal Reserve fizzles - The LockBit ransomware gang claimed it had breached the U.S. Federal Reserve, but it ultimately leaked data belonging to a single bank. On June 23, LockBit listed the U.S. Federal Reserve on its data leak site and claimed to have obtained roughly 33 ...
4 months ago Techtarget.com
Ukrainian Faces Decades in Prison for Leading Prolific Malware Campaig - A Ukrainian national has pleaded guilty leading two prolific malware schemes and is facing up to 40 years imprisonment. The US Department of Justice said that Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov was behind the Zeus and IcedID malware campaigns, which led ...
9 months ago Infosecurity-magazine.com
Copycat Criminals mimicking Lockbit gang in northern Europe - Recent reports of Lockbit locker-based attacks against North European SMBs indicate that local crooks started using Lockbit locker variants. During the past months, the Lockbit gang reached very high popularity in the underground ecosystem. The ...
1 year ago Securityaffairs.com
LockBit Ransomware Gang's Website Shut Down - The U.K. National Crime Agency's Cyber Division, the FBI and international partners have cut off ransomware threat actors' access to LockBit's website, which has been used as a large ransomware-as-a-service storefront. According to CISA, LockBit was ...
9 months ago Techrepublic.com
Trickbot malware developer sentenced to 5 years behind bars The Register - A former Trickbot developer has been sent down for five years and four months for his role in infecting American hospitals and businesses with ransomware and other malware, costing victims tens of millions of dollars in losses. Vladimir Dunaev, of ...
9 months ago Go.theregister.com
WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Returns to Australia a Free Man After US Legal Battle Ends - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet and raised a celebratory clenched fist as his supporters cheered on Wednesday, hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a ...
4 months ago Securityweek.com
4 new LockBit-related arrests, identities of suspected Evil Corp members, affiliates revealed - Help Net Security - The third phase of Operation Cronos, which involved officers from the UK National Crime Agency (NCA), the FBI, Europol and other law enforcement agencies, has resulted in the arrest of four persons for allegedly participating in the LockBit ...
1 month ago Helpnetsecurity.com
Former IT manager pleads guilty to attacking high school network - Conor LaHiff, a former IT manager for a New Jersey public high school, has admitted to committing a cyberattack against his former employer following the termination of his employment in June 2023. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced ...
11 months ago Bleepingcomputer.com

Latest Cyber News


Cyber Trends (last 7 days)


Trending Cyber News (last 7 days)