Tom Schuba reports:
Rogue employees of a Chicago company that specializes in negotiating ransoms to mitigate cyber attacks were carrying out their own piracy in a plot to extort millions of dollars from a series of companies, prosecutors say.
Kevin Tyler Martin, a ransomware threat negotiator for River North-based DigitalMint at the time of the alleged conspiracy, was among two men indicted in the scheme. A suspected accomplice who wasn’t indicted was also employed at DigitalMint, court records show.
DigitalMint has denied any wrongdoing, fired both employees and cooperated with the investigation.
Also indicted was Ryan Clifford Goldberg, an incident response manager for the multinational company Sygnia Cybersecurity Services. Sygnia said Goldberg no longer works for the company and it “is not the target of this investigation, however we continue to work closely with law enforcement.”
According to an affidavit filed in September by an FBI agent, the three men began using malicious software in May 2023 “to conduct ransomware attacks against victims,” first hitting a medical company in Florida by locking its servers and demanding $10 million to unlock the systems, court records say.
Read more at the Chicago Sun-Times.