Lockbit infiltrated companies such as Boeing, the Subway restaurant chain, and Chinese bank ICBC, interfered with the systems of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), disrupted the US bond market, causing billions of dollars in losses, and encrypted computers and servers. one among hundreds of other small and large companies. The most interesting thing in this whole situation is that one of the members of the criminal organization was caught in Ukraine.

Details of the operation

Lockbit’s activities were stopped by international law enforcement agencies led by the National Crime Agency of Great Britain. When authorities arrested the group’s leading figures on Monday, the hackers’ website was disabled. “This site is now under the control of law enforcement”, – it says on the main page of the resource. According to the Vx-underground malware repository, law enforcement has taken down at least 22 Tor sites linked to Lockbit.

Thanks to our close collaboration, we cracked the hackers, took control of their infrastructure, extracted the source code, and obtained keys to help victims decrypt their systems. LockBit is currently blocked. We have damaged the capabilities and, most importantly, the credibility of a group that relies on secrecy and anonymity.
– says Graham Biggar, director general of the National Crime Agency in Great Britain.

Lockbit also admitted defeat. The remnants of the group said in a statement to Vx-underground: “The FBI robbed us”.

As part of the same “Kronos” operation, law enforcement agencies of Poland, Ukraine and the USA also arrested key members of the group on their territory. Two more Lockbit branches are under sanctions in Russia, but it is impossible to get them there at the moment. According to Bloomberg, 11,000 domain names were seized in the operation, in which law enforcement officers from 11 countries participated.