The United States puts a bounty on the ransomware package “Conte”

The US State Department has announced a reward for five high-ranking members of the Conte Ransomar gang. The United States plans to pay up to $10 million for information on pro-Russian cybercriminals. Information about the physical locations, travel and vacation plans of the people being searched is of particular interest, and the reports”wired“.

As part of the call, the authority claims to have posted a photo of a potential Conte member for the first time. This is known only as “target”. This is the office manager and Operation Ryuk/Kunte team leader, as “computer is bleedingI mentioned. The guy has a background in law enforcement.

The US government reveals the face of Conte’s assistant for the first time! We’re trying to put a name on the face!

For the guy in the photo: imagine how many awesome hats you can buy for $10 million!

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Rewards for Justice (RFJ_USA) August 11, 2022

Also on the wanted list are “Tramp” (the former head of Operation Conti ransomware, who now heads Blackbasta ransomware activities), “Dandis” (the technical director and technical director of the ransomware gang), “The Professor” (Ryuk – a leader with tactical responsibility) and “Reshaev” (the chief administrator, developer and operator of Ryuk / Conti ransomware).

150 million dollars extorted

Conte (or Ryuk, as the gang was called before 2020) may have been responsible for more than 1,000 attacks and is said to have seized more than $150 million in ransom worldwide. After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Conte officially supported the Russian state. In response, about 60 thousand messages were published from internal chat logs by an unknown person claiming to work for Ukraine. The ransomware source code was also among the data published.

In May 2022, Conte officially ceased operations. However, members are still fully active and now working for other ransomware groups.

The reward is part of the Rewards for Justice Program in the United States. This rewards individuals with information that leads to the identification or identification of individuals who have conducted cyber attacks on US infrastructure at the direction of foreign governments. At the end of April, the United States already announced a reward for obtaining information on the sandworm population in the same way. According to the United States, this is the 74455 military unit of the Central Leading Apparatus (GRU) of the Russian Military Intelligence. Read more here.

You can learn more about cyber warfare in Ukraine here in the online file is reading.

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