The US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program is offering a $10 million reward for information that would lead to the identification of the ALPHV (BlackCat) affiliates and operators.
ALPHV (BlackCat), active since 2021, is responsible for hundreds of attacks against companies worldwide. One of their latest and largest targets was Change Healthcare, affecting hundreds of pharmacies and other healthcare operators in the US.
What makes this situation stand out is a Wired
report that indicates Change Healthcare might have actually made a $22 million payment to the attackers. This sparked its own drama inside the group and its operators.
It turns out that criminals can’t be trusted, and operators don’t want to share the $22 million ransomware money with the affiliate responsible for the hack. Also, a few months back, some of the group’s domains went dark after the FBI tried to take them down, only to quickly resurface.
Now, the group has attracted enough attention to warrant a massive reward for information leading to the identification of the people behind this ransomware strain.
