Is the BlackCat/AlphV ransomware gang self-destructing?

The continuous legend of the BlackCat/AlphV ransomware gang continues, with a report that the team has actually closed down its servers after a questionable hack of an American health care companies.

Bleeping Computer states the gang’s information leakage blog site shut on Friday and the websites it utilizes to work out ransom payments closed today.

This follows

— a gang affiliate last month was presumably paid US$ 22 million after its information theft and ransomware attack interrupted the services of Change Healthcarewhich offers a variety of services to healthcare facilities and centers consisting of processing drug store prescriptions and health care payments;

— on the heels of that event, the BlackCat/AlphV operators supposedly plucked that payment back from the affiliate’s digital wallet before closing down operations.

Got it?

Bleeping Computer states it’s uncertain whether the closure is an exit rip-off or an effort to rebrand the gang under a various name. BlackCat, the news service mentions, is a rebrand of the DarkSide ransomware operation.

All this follows American cyber authorities in December took numerous of the group’s information leakage and interactions websites and released a decrypter that victim companies can utilize to get gain access to back to rushed information.

It isn’t unidentified why BlackCat/AlphV operators struck at one of its partners. Due to the fact that of the December hit, the gang stated it eliminated all of its guidelines prohibiting affiliates permitted to utilize its ransomware to attack vital facilities like the health care sector.

The attack on Change Healthcare seemed an indication that BlackCat/AlphV had actually recovered from the December blow.

Rick Pollack, CEO of the American Hospitals Association, called it “the most severe occurrence of its kind levelled versus an U.S. health care company.” According to Change Healthcare, he kept in mind, the business processes 15 billion health care deals yearly and touches one in every 3 American client records.

The occurrence is major enough that, according to Politicothe White House’s National Security Council began checking out methods to offer short-term monetary relief to U.S. medical facilities. Probably, attention from the White House is not what a ransomware gang desires.