Two US Cybersecurity Pros Plead Guilty Over Ransomware Attacks

Two cybersecurity professionals from the United States have pleaded guilty to charges related to their role in BlackCat/Alphv ransomware attacks, the Justice Department announced this week.

Three individuals were charged in October for allegedly conducting ransomware attacks against several US-based companies. Two of the suspects, 36-year-old Kevin Martin from Texas and an unnamed individual, were employed as ransomware negotiators at threat intelligence and incident response firm DigitalMint.

The third suspect, 40-year-old Ryan Goldberg from Georgia, worked as an incident response manager at cybersecurity company Sygnia.

The three are accused of hacking into the systems of several companies, stealing valuable information, and deploying BlackCat ransomware.

Based on the Justice Department’s description of the scheme, the suspects were BlackCat ransomware affiliates, paying 20% of the ransoms they received from victims to the administrators of the ransomware operation in exchange for access to the file-encrypting malware and a platform designed for ...