Criminal assigned to ransomware group receives over 13-year sentence for 2021 incident
Yaroslav Vasinskyi, 24, is accused of involvement with the notorious ransomware group REvil. Reportedly, they carried out around 2,500 ransomware attacks and asked for over $700 million in ransom payments, according to a Justice Department news release.
According to CNN's report from 2021, Vasinskyi was allegedly involved in deploying ransomware on a software firm based in Florida named Kaseya. The REvil gang demanded millions of dollars to halt the attack, said the prosecutors.
The ransomware attack affected up to 1,500 businesses worldwide, causing several to halt operations for days. This incident demonstrated how ransomware groups can use supply-chain vulnerabilities to disrupt businesses.
Vasinskyi, a.k.a "Rabotnik," was just 22 when he was apprehended in Poland and sent to the US. Previously, he had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and related activities in relation to computers, damaging protected computers, and conspiring to launder money, the department stated.
In a statement, the Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, "Using the REvil ransomware variant, the defendant targeted American victims, demanding hundreds of millions of dollars." She added, "The DOJ is determined to bring to justice those who target U.S. citizens and to disrupt the broader cybercrime ecosystem."
Alongside Vasinskyi, Russian national Yevgeniy Polyanin was also charged in the 2021 incident, CNN reported. Authorities confiscated around $6 million in funds linked to the ransom payments made to Polyanin as part of the investigation. The Treasury Department also sanctioned Vasinskyi, Polyanin, and a cryptocurrency exchange that moved money for the ransomware operatives in the same year.
CNN's Sean Lyngaas and Jack Forrest contributed to this report.
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Source: edition.cnn.com
