According to a statement from the US Justice Department on Thursday, the Hive ransomware operation, which had extorted more than US$100 million from more than 1,500 victims worldwide, has been shut down (January 26). The Department of Justice has destroyed “an international ransomware network responsible for extorting and attempting to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from victims,” according to a statement from US Attorney General Merrick Garland.
According to US Attorney General Merrick Garland, the servers and website for Hive were taken over by US law officials along with Dutch and German law enforcement after around seven months of penetration. Due to the invasion, companies were able to avoid having to pay extortion demands for US$130 million that were made after the platform hacked and froze their data systems.
Hive functioned as a ransomware service
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco called the operation to infiltrate Hive a “21st-century cyber stakeout.” “We hacked the hackers,” she said. It served as a ransomware platform that anybody could use to access, lockdown, and collect payments for a target’s IT systems using its software and other services. The customer and Hive would split the extortion’s proceeds.
Since Hive’s release in 2021, around 1,500 businesses and organizations have been infiltrated, with backup files being deleted or left inaccessible and IT systems or databases being encrypted by Hive.