It was in September 2023 when the LockBit group attacked the website and computer services dependent on the Seville city council, generating a significant collapse and asking for a million-dollar ransom that was denied by the Seville city council. Little by little, and after several weeks of intense work, the computer scientists managed to safely return the servers to normal. Now, months later, and within the framework of an international operation led by the British Crime Agency, in which the United States FBI and authorities from other countries have collaborated, the services of the cybercriminal group have been hacked.
As reported by the British Agency, as a result of this international collaboration, a disruption or alteration campaign has been launched against this organization of cyberpirates, which turns out to be “the most harmful group of criminals in the world.” In this framework, and with the collaboration of Europol, two of the alleged members of LockBit have been arrested in Poland and Ukraine and some 200 economic crypto assets related to the criminal group have been seized.
Additionally, US authorities have announced that two people sued for allegedly using LockBit services to deploy cyberattacks have been indicted, are in custody and will face trial.
The agents, according to the British Crime Agency, have managed to infiltrate the group’s internal network and have managed to “take control of LockBit’s services, compromising its entire criminal organization” and taking down 28 servers belonging to members of the group. of cyber pirates.
The British Crime Agency, in this way, ensures that it has “taken control of LockBit’s primary administration environment”, which allowed members of the group to assemble and launch computer attacks; also controlling the organization’s site on the “dark web” or dark Internet, where its members hosted the data stolen in their actions with the “threat” of its publication.
The agents have also obtained the code of LockBit’s initial platform and a large amount of information from its systems about the activities of the criminal group and about those who have worked with it and used its services to attack organizations and entities.
This operation, according to the British Crime Agency, “is just the beginning of a series of actions against LockBit” and its members.
