But in fact, both law enforcement activities may have been more successful than them. Alphv, after receiving a ransom of $ 22 million from Change Health Care, drawn a fraudulent escape, took money and disappeared instead Pham changed. Lockbit, too, most of the map after the following months of the NCA's destruction, perhaps due to the faith of the subway to the group and the accused leader, Dmitry Khoroshev, when clearly clearly clear. NCA has identified him. In May 2024, Khoroshev was also punished by the US Treasury, causing Lockbit victims to pay a ransom to the group.
Although the gap was left by the big players in the ransomware ecosystem was filled by new groups in the second half of 2024, many of them had no skills or experience to pursue items. Big and well protected as Lockbit and Alphv said, Burns Koven. As a result, she said, the ransom payments were much smaller, usually tens of thousands of dollars, not millions or tens of millions.
Their talents are not as strong as their predecessors, Mr. Burn Burns Koven talks about the newer generation of ransomware gangs. We are seeing the hangover of these law enforcement, not only targeting individuals and malware lines but also infrastructure and tools and services and services. has been used to help maintain these attacks.
Last year, there were many ransomware problems more than the previous year, Allan Liska, an intelligence analyst, threatened to focus on ransomware at the security company that recorded the future. The company calculated 4,634 attacks in 2024 compared to 4,400 by 2023. But the lower ransom received by newer ransomware groups showed that they could have supported the amount than the quality, he said. What we are seeing in the payment is the reflection of the newer threat actors attracted by the amount they see you can do in the ransomware, try to participate in the game and are not good at About it,.
In addition to the major law enforcement actions in early 2024, the analysis of the chain of payments in the second half of the year Global awareness raising Regarding ransomware threats, leading to more mature defenses and plans in governments and other organizations. And Burns Koven added that the regulations on cryptocurrencies and law enforcement Exploiting money laundering infrastructureIncluding mixers that help the anonymous criminals and disturb the origin of their not good cryptocurrencies, have also eroded the capabilities of the ransomware actors to handle payments without ants. Specialization.
Although the decline of payments in the second half of 2024 is very significant to the largest data ever, the number of ransomware attacks and the previous payment and decrease in . Notably, the researchers witnessed a significant decline in 2022, a year in which the chain has set the total payment of ransomware at $ 655 million compared to $ 1.07 billion in the year. 2021 and nearly $ 1 billion by 2020. Working, Ransomware has increased again as a threat even more cruel by 2023, total, according to the number of Chainalysis, $ 1.25 billion. Math in that year.