He is accused of carrying out cyberattacks against multiple entities in 80 countries. Hive, a leading ransomware attack network, has been taken down, the US Department of Justice announced on Thursday (January 26th). He was first spotted in June 2021 before making more than 1 500 victims worldwide, such as a German chain of electronics stores, the Indian industrial giant Tata or even American hospitals.
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“Hive has targeted critical infrastructure and some of the most important industries in our country“, lamented US Secretary of Justice Merrick Garland at a press conference. According to him, “in August 2021, Hive deployed ransomware to computers in a Midwestern hospital just as Covid was erupting all over the world. The attack left the hospital unable to accept new patients and was forced to rely on hard copies for patient information.
“The hospital was only able to recover this data after paying a ransom.”
Merrick Garland, US Secretary of Justiceat a press conference
The technique is always the same: hackers infiltrate a computer system, encrypt company data and demand payment to unlock it. Hive would thus have recovered more than 100 million dollars in ransom in its first year of activity alone.