The United States, along with the United Kingdom and Australia, imposed sanctions on Russian internet hosting company Zservers on February 11, which provided services to cybercriminals. Its administrators were also subject to restrictions.
This was reported by the US Treasury Department.
Zservers specializes in anonymous hosting, which allows hackers to evade law enforcement. It provided IP addresses and servers for cybercriminal operations, including attacks by the LockBit group, which is known for its ransomware — malware that blocks access to data on a computer or server and demands a ransom to unlock it.
LockBit is responsible for numerous cyberattacks, including the attack on the American bank Industrial Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in 2023.
Two Zservers administrators, Oleksandr Mishin and Oleksandr Bolshakov, who helped organize attacks and transfer payments in cryptocurrency, were also sanctioned.
Now the men and Zserverʼs American accounts and assets have been frozen. US companies are prohibited from doing any financial transactions with them. Financial institutions that cooperate with Zservers may also be subject to sanctions.
- This is not the first time the US, Australia and the UK have joined forces to combat cybercrime. Last year, they imposed sanctions on Russian cybercriminals linked to the Evil Corp group, which was also involved in the spread of ransomware.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.