Russian skilled basketball participant Daniil Kasatkin was arrested in France on the request of the US for allegedly appearing as a negotiator for a ransomware gang.
Daniil Kasatkin is a Russian basketball participant who briefly performed NCAA basketball at Penn State earlier than returning to Russia in 2019. In 4 seasons with MBA-MAI, he appeared in 172 video games earlier than he left the workforce.
In accordance with French media, Kasatkin was arrested at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport on June twenty first after touchdown in France along with his fiancée.
The arrest was made as a part of a United States worldwide arrest warrant for his position as an alleged negotiator for a ransomware gang.
Kasatkin is now underneath custody whereas the US seeks to have him extradited to face costs of “conspiracy to commit laptop fraud” and “laptop fraud conspiracy.”
His lawyer alleges that Kasatkin will not be responsible of those crimes and that they’re as a substitute linked to a second-hand laptop that he bought.
“He purchased a second-hand laptop. He did completely nothing. He is shocked ,” his lawyer, Frédéric Bélot, informed the media.
“He is ineffective with computer systems and may’t even set up an software. He did not contact something on the pc: it was both hacked, or the hacker bought it to him to behave underneath the quilt of one other individual.”
Whereas the title of the ransomware gang was not disclosed, it’s reported to have been behind assaults on greater than 900 firms, together with two federal businesses, between 2020 and 2022.
This description carefully matches related language utilized by the Division of Justice to check with the infamous Conti ransomware gang, which emerged as a successor to Ryuk in 2020 and shut down in 2022, following a knowledge breach.
Nonetheless, it was not beforehand reported that Conti breached any federal businesses, although they’re linked to assaults on state governments.
Final month, French police additionally arrested 4 alleged operators of the BreachForums hacking discussion board, together with risk actors utilizing the alias IntelBroker and ShinyHunters.
Whereas cloud assaults could also be rising extra refined, attackers nonetheless succeed with surprisingly easy strategies.
Drawing from Wiz’s detections throughout 1000’s of organizations, this report reveals 8 key strategies utilized by cloud-fluent risk actors.
