The Russian justice system has convicted four people linked to the prolific REvil ransomware operation.

Russian news agency Kommersant said Friday that the St. Petersburg Garrison Military Court gave Artem Zayets, Aleksey Malozemov, Daniil Puzyrevsky and Ruslan Khansvyarov 4.5 to 6 years on charges of using and distributing malware, as well as money laundering money.

“The investigation links the convict to the Revil hacking group,” reads the Google translation report. “Their activities became known from a request from US law enforcement agencies, who reported on the leader of the criminal group and his involvement in attacks on the information resources of foreign high-tech companies.”

A multi-year investigation

The arrests took place “in several regions of the Russian Federation in June 2021”, reports the media.

14 people were initially detained in the REvil case about two years ago when Russian authorities dismantled the ransomware operation after Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin discussed cracking down on Russian extortionists.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) began investigating REvil after receiving information from “competent US agencies who notified about a leader of a criminal group and his involvement in attacks on the IT resources of foreign high-tech companies through implanting malware, encrypting data and extorting money for them. decryption,” reported TASS from Russia in January 2022.

Members of Operation REvil are said to have carried out thousands of cyber attacks on organizations around the world, extorting hundreds of millions of dollars from victims.

Only eight defendants were eventually brought to trial, four of whom have now received final sentences under several articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – illegal access to computer information and illegal circulation of digital currency.

None of the defendants pleaded guilty.