An international coalition of law enforcement agencies has resurrected the dark website of the notorious LockBit ransomware gang. which they had seized earlier this yearcausing new revelations about the group.
On Sunday, what was once the official LockBit darknet site reappeared online with new posts suggesting that authorities are planning to release new information about the hackers in the next 24 hours, as of this writing.
The posts have titles like “Who is LockBitSupp?”, “What have we learned?”, “More LB hackers exposed,” and “What have we been up to?”
In February, a police coalition that included the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as forces from Germany, Finland, France, Japan and others announced that the official LockBit site had been infiltrated. The coalition took over the site and replaced the information on it with their own press release and other information in a clear attempt to troll and warn hackers that authorities were following them.
The February operation also included the arrest of two alleged LockBit members in Ukraine and Poland, the downing of 34 servers in Europe, the UK and the US, as well as the seizure of more than 200 cryptocurrency wallets belonging to the hackers.
The NCA and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BlockBit It first emerged in 2019 and has since become one of the most prolific ransomware gangs in the world, generating millions of dollars in ransom payments. The group has proven to be very resilient. Even after the February demolition, the group has resurfaced with a new dark web leak site, which has been actively updated with new alleged victims.
All but one of the new posts on the seized website have a countdown ending at 9 a.m. ET on Tuesday, May 7, suggesting that is when authorities will announce new actions against LockBit. Another post says the site will be shut down in four days.
Since authorities announced what they called “Operation Cronos” against LockBit in February, the leader of the group, known as LockBitSupp stated in an interview that law enforcement has exaggerated their access to the criminal organization, as well as the effect of its dismantling.
On Sunday, the hacker collective vx-underground wrote in X that they had spoken to LockBit management staff, who had told them that the police were lying.
“I don’t understand why they are putting on this little show. “They are clearly upset that we are still working,” the staff said, according to vx-underground.
The identity of LockBitSupp is still unknown, although that could change soon. One of the new posts on the seized LockBit site promises to reveal the hacker’s identity on Tuesday. It should be noted, however, that the previous version of the seized site also seemed to promise to reveal the identity of the gang leader, but ultimately failed to do so.