Two U.S. Cybersecurity Workers Plead Guilty to ALPHV BlackCat Ransomware Attacks on American Victims
The Justice Department announced on December 30 that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida had accepted guilty pleas the day before from two men who admitted conspiring to obstruct, delay or affect commerce by extortion, in a series of ALPHV BlackCat ransomware attacks on victims across the United States in 2023. The defendants are Ryan Goldberg, 40, of Georgia, and Kevin Martin, 36, of Texas.
According to the department, Goldberg, Martin and another unnamed co-conspirator successfully deployed the ALPHV BlackCat ransomware against multiple victims across the country between April and December 2023. The three agreed to pay the ransomware's administrators a 20 percent share in exchange for access to the malware and its extortion platform, and all three worked in the cybersecurity industry. After extorting one victim of about $1.2 million in Bitcoin, the three split the remaining 80 percent share among themselves and laundered the proceeds. Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Criminal Division said the defendants used their sophisticated cybersecurity training and experience to commit the very type of crime they should have been working to stop.
The department said ALPHV BlackCat struck the computer networks of more than 1,000 victims worldwide under a ransomware-as-a-service model. In a December 2023 disruption operation, the FBI developed a decryption tool that helped hundreds of victims restore their systems and saved about $99 million in ransom payments. Goldberg and Martin each pleaded guilty to one count and are scheduled to be sentenced on March 12, 2026, facing a maximum of 20 years in prison. The FBI Miami Field Office is investigating the case, with assistance from the U.S. Secret Service.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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