Security News > 2024 > March > The federal bureau of trolling hits LockBit, but the joke's on us

Operation Cronos, led by the UK's National Crime Agency and the US's FBI, was put together by agencies from ten countries with the aim of closing down the world's most successful ransomware gang, LockBit.

Best of all, the countdown timer by which LockBit displayed how long victims had left to pay up had been duplicated, only this time counting down to the unmasking of LockBit's head honcho, LockBitSupp.

LockBit provides the tools and manages the negotiations with victims, in exchange for a 20 percent cut of the take.

Crucially, what LockBit didn't do was collect the ransom - it left that to the affiliates.

Worse still, just five days after Operation Cronos, LockBit and LockBitSupp reappeared online, with headline-grabbing hostage data packages and LockBitSupp dissing the feds something rotten.

On a darker note, LockBit is basically invulnerable, and will remain so while it's a criminal gang in a mobster nation.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/04/opinion/