Texas Border Business
FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran on June 5 highlighted the Bureau’s “ongoing disruption” of the LockBit ransomware group and its affiliates, and urged potential victims to contact the Bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
The Bureau now has more than 7,000 LockBit decryption keys in its possession, Vorndran said in a keynote at the 2024 Boston Conference on Cyber Security. We can use these keys to help victims get their data back, he noted. Potential victims can contact IC3 by visiting our LockBit Victim Reporting Form at lockbitvictims.ic3.gov.
“We are reaching out to known LockBit victims and encouraging anyone who suspects they were a victim to visit our Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov,” he said.
The LockBit ransomware variant has been utilized in over 2,400 cyberattacks around the world—more than 1,800 of which impacted victims in the U.S.—he said. These attacks have targeted various sectors and racked up “billions of dollars in damages,” Vorndran said.
And, Vorndran noted, a recent international “operation to disrupt and seize” LockBit infrastructure and to sanction the group and its affiliates revealed that the group and its affiliates retained victim data, even after victims had paid them ransoms.
Resources:
- Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran’s Remarks at the 2024 Boston Conference on Cyber Security
- U.S. Charges Russian National with Developing and Operating Lockbit Ransomware (U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey press release)
- U.S. and U.K. Disrupt LockBit Ransomware Variant (U.S. Department of Justice press release)
