highCyber Attacks
MonsterCloud Owner Charged with Fraud in Ransomware Decryptor Scheme
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Zohar Pinhasi, owner of the incident response firm MonsterCloud, with two counts of wire fraud and one count of wire fraud conspiracy. Prosecutors allege that Pinhasi defrauded ransomware victims by secretly paying attackers to obtain decryptors while billing victims for proprietary recovery tools he did not use. The scheme reportedly generated over $19 million in illicit billing. The case highlights risks of unvetted incident response providers and the importance of transparency in ransomware recovery.
The Hacker News1 min read