US government is charged A Russian and Israeli national reportedly created and maintained Lockbit's malware code, while receiving more than $230,000 in cryptocurrency for his work. Rostislav Panev, 51, was arrested in Israel pending extradition to the US, making him the third member of the Lockbit ransomware group in custody.
are officers The alleged leader of Lockbit, Dmitry Khoroshev, is still being sought.With a reward of up to $10 million. DOJ claimed in may Based on a 20 percent share of ransom payments extorted by associates using the group's software, “Khoroshev alone received at least $100 million in disbursements of digital currency through his developer shares of Lockbit ransom payments”.
Law enforcement linked Panev to Lockbit after finding login credentials on his computer for a dark web repository housing “multiple versions of Lockbit Builder,” a tool that allows members to “generate custom builds of the Lockbit ransomware malware for specific victims.” allows for.”
Panev reportedly admitted to writing and maintaining Lockbit's malware code in interviews with Israeli police. Some of the code they created is said to be able to disable Windows Defender antivirus software, run malware on multiple computers on a network, and print Lockbit's ransom note on all printers on the victim's network. According to the complaint, Panev claimed that at first he did not realize that he was involved in illegal activity.