The U.S. Treasury Department is offering up to $10 million for information on the leaders of a cybercriminal gang that has repeatedly hacked hospitals.
The reward is focused on identifying and locating the operators of the Hive ransomware group that have shaken down hospitals, schools and other critical industries for $100 million. U.S. authorities dismantled Hive's operations starting in 2022, providing victims with its data decryption keys and saving an estimated $130 million savings in ransom payments, but the hackers themselves evaded capture.
On Feb. 8, the treasury department also declared a reward of up to $5 million for info leading to the arrest or conviction of anyone in the world who conspired or tried to participate in Hive ransomware activity.
The group attacked a Midwestern hospital during the height of the pandemic in 2021, causing it to stop accepting new patients, and reportedly tried to blackmail a Louisiana hospital out of $3 million and a Georgia hospital out of $1.5 million in 2022.
The U.S. has been coming down hard on cybercriminal groups, recently sentencing a Russian malware developer to five years in prison after the scheme he aided reportedly extorted $100 million from hospitals. But it's been a bit of hacker whack-a-mole, as cyberattacks on health systems, most recently a Chicago children's hospital, continue.