The United States Department of Justice has placed an $11 million bounty on Ukrainian national Volodymyr Viktorovich Tymoshchuk—who also goes by the aliases deadforz, Boba, msfv, and farnetwork—accusing him of being the mastermind behind ransomware that has been used to attack over 250 US companies, as well as others around the world. The DoJ says that these cybercrimes resulted in the theft of an eye-watering $18 billion over three years.
Tymoshchuk is accused of being "an administrator" behind various ransomware including MegaCortex, LockerGoga, and Nefilim. From late 2018 to October 2021 Tymoshchuk is alleged to have first operated LockerGoga and MegaCortex attacks, which in the latter case changes the passwords and encrypts all files on a host computer, before issuing threats to the user and demands for payment. LockerGoga was used in an attack on Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian energy company, that affected all of its 170 sites and caused an estimated $81 million in damages.
