AN international operation led by the UK’s National Crime Agency and the FBI in America has severely disrupted a hacking group that launched cyberattacks on two Balaeric councils.
Websites and computer networks belonging to Calvia in Mallorca and Sant Antoni in Ibiza were hit by the LockBit cybercriminal group, leading to severe disruption.
The hackers demanded a €10 million ransom from Calvia after its attack in early January which the authority refused to pay.
Sant Antoni was attacked in a similar way at the beginning of the month.
With the collaboration of Europol, two members of LockBit have been arrested in Poland and Ukraine and some 200 economic crypto assets related to the group seized.
The FBI said that two individuals sued for allegedly using LockBit’s services to deploy cyberattacks have been indicted, are in custody, and will be prosecuted.
The UK’s National Crime Agency said that agents had managed to infiltrate the group’s internal network and have managed to ‘take control of LockBit’s services, compromising its entire criminal organization’.
28 servers belonging to members of the hacker group have also been taken down.
The agency added that it was in control of the organisation’s site on the ‘dark web’ where it stored stolen data that it threatened to publish if ransoms were not paid.
A large amount of information about the group including its secret codes had been obtained and the UK agency said it was just the start of a ‘series of actions against LockBit and its members’.
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