Backing Russia Backfires as Conti Ransomware Gang Internal Chats Leak
The gang behind the Conti ransomware suffered a major blow yesterday after one of its members leaked more than a year of internal conversations.
As Reuters reported on Friday, the gang known as the Conti group, announced its full support for the Russian government and Putin's actions in a blog post last week. The post also carried a warning, "If anybody will decide to organize a cyberattack or any war activities against Russia, we are going to use our all possible resources to strike back at the critical infrastructures of an enemy."
As The Record reports, clearly not everyone in the gang is happy with the pro-Russian stance and one member decided to retaliate by leaking 339 files containing internal chats the gang had between Jan. 29, 2021 and Feb 27, 2022. In the email containing the files, the leaker commented, "We promise it is very interesting." The identity of the person leaking the chats is unknown, but is obviously thought to be of Ukranian origin.
Such a large amount of information is going to take some time to process, but the authenticity of the files has already been confirmed by Dmitry Smilyanets, a cyber threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future.
It's certainly a blow to the Conti group (who has since edited the message to be more neutral in tone) and potentially enough to distract them from the threat of striking back against anyone mounting a cyberattack against Russia. Such cyberattacks are likely following Ukraine enlisting an "IT Army" to target both Russia and its main ally Belarus.
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