The Civil Guard arrested one of the men at Madrid airport. main infrastructure managers of Lockbit, the malware allegedly created in Russia and responsible for cyberattacks in more than 120 countries on 2,500 companies, people and institutions.
Sources close to the investigation specified that he is a Belarusian citizen and that his detention is one of the four recently carried out against this group coordinated by Europol in France (1), United Kingdom (2) and Spain (1)in addition to actions and registrations in a total of 12 countries.
According to the General Directorate of the Civil Guard and Europol, the person arrested in Spain is considered a key element of the infrastructure used by this group, since he was the Internet Service Provider Administrator employed by Lockbit and offered anonymity and confidentiality to its customers.
With the arrest of the owner of the aforementioned service provider called “Bullet Proof Hosting”, agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) seized nine relevant servers of the Lockbit infrastructure. Through this, relevant information was obtained to identify the main members and affiliates of the ransomware group, currently continuing the analysis of the collected information.
Lockbit is considered a pioneering program in terms of exploiting malicious ransomware models that facilitate the growth of cybercrime, making it accessible to people without advanced technical knowledge. Since the end of 2019 it is used by cybercriminals to access the computer systems of institutions and companies.
In May, the United States indicted its alleged creator, developer and administrator, Russian Dimitry Yuryevich Khoroshev, and offered him up to $10 million reward to obtain information leading to your arrest and/or conviction.
