ya im a professional malware analyst (i throw the sample in triage or virustotal and hope it tells me something)

> check emails
> email from breachedforum
> get called homosexual african american
> *scroll*
> another email from compromised italian gov email
> long manifesto
> ???

Lockbit ransomware group is advertising Lockbit 4.0.

We requested access to join their platform and, because we can't pay, we are offering them 9 (nine) limited edition cat pictures.

Will this work? Will Lockbit get mad?

Find out on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z

> Lockbit ransomware group bought Lockbit4-dot-com through Cloudflare!

Wrong. They advertised the domain but left it available for purchase. Someone bought it. No idea who could have done such a thing.

Word on the street is whoever purchased this domain may cover the website in limited edition kitty cats. This is just rumors and speculation though.

Bernardo Quintero, the founder of VirusTotal, is releasing a book noscriptd: "Infectado: Del Spectrum a Google, el camino de un emprendedor accidental" (in English, Infected - From Spectrum to Google, the path of an accidental entrepreneur)

It's written in Spanish, we're devastated.

Things are starting to add up — why did Lockbit ransomware group issue a threat to Christopher Wray, the current director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation? Why has it taken Lockbit ransomware group so long to release this 'Lockbit 4.0' they keep discussing? Why has it taken them so long to do... almost anything?

In August, 2024 a person named Rostislav Panev was arrested in Israel as he is believed to be a core member of Lockbit ransomware group — the programmer responsible for the development of the Lockbit payload.

Today in Israel it was announced Mr. Panev is deemed extraditable to the United States and his official hearing is schedule on January 5th, 2025 in the Jerusalem District court.

🚨BREAKING 🚨

Lockbit ransomware group has confirmed our suspicions. Hacking is illegal and for nerds!!

https://lockbit4.com

We made it bigly now, gang

The bidding war is real — we're big cash money, gang

Per BleepinComputer, a ransomware affiliate from Netwalker ransomware group has been sentenced. He has received 20 years in prison.

It appears the defacto standard in the United States judicial system for ransomware operators (based on arrests of REvil affiliates, Netwalker affiliates, etc) is roughly 20 years in prison. Previous arrests also have shown assets seized (cryptocurrency), and restitution.

Although, the restitution part would be difficult because prison pay in the United States (varying) is approx. $1.41/hour (some as low as $0.03/hr) and some ransomware affiliates owe millions in restitution to victims. This means, ideally, a high paid prisoner would have to work 709,000 hours (29,550 days, 80 years) to pay victims back if they owed $1,000,000 in restitution.

tl;dr if caught doing ransomware, the United States government will take your money, ban you from electronics, sentence you to 20 years in prison, and may you pay back millions at a rate of $1/hr

tl;dr tl;dr if caught doing ransomware, your life is ruined forever (or about 30% of your adult life, depending on how long you live, or unless you "unalive" yourself in prison)

Conversely, we've seen information stealer malware authors receive 5 years in prison.

1. Judges fucking HATE ransomware, they will throw the book at you (slang, meaning be as harsh as possible)

2. It appears it also depends on how much you're willing to snitch and/or beg

"They'll never catch me if I'm in Israel, with this funny hat and fake moustache" — Rostislav Panev, developer and core member of Lockbit ransomware group

(one of the developers of lockbit ransomware group was arrested in israel)

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-charges-dual-russian-and-israeli-national-developer-lockbit-ransomware-group

Ransomware payloads often skip over executable files to save on time and performance.

Replace every file extension on your computer with .exe, .dll, or .sys to prevent ransomware attacks.