The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday the results of a months-long operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that actively disrupted the activities of the Hive ransomware group, which the agency says had targeted hospitals, schools, and banking in over 80 countries.
“Last night, the Justice Department dismantled an international ransomware network responsible for extorting and attempting to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
Since June 2021, the Justice Department says, the group has targeted more than 1,500 victims worldwide and received over $100 million in cryptocurrency ransom payments. The DOJ says the FBI’s operation to penetrate Hive’s network began in July 2022 and was able to provide over 1,300 decryption keys to help victims recover their data and systems—including critical infrastructure one.
The agency says the operation was coordinated with German and Dutch law enforcement, seizing control of the servers and websites used…