FBI ‘hacked the hackers’ and protected around $130M

The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday said it hacked the ransomware gang called Hive and prevented it from collecting more than $130 million in payment from 300 victims.

The “lawful” hack, in which Europol and German officials were involved, started in July by secretly infiltrating Hive’s control panel.

The Hive syndicate blackmailed and earned roughly $100 million from US citizens in the past two years. Hackers of the group target government, businesses and healthcare infrastructure to gain access to victims’ private data and threaten to leak them.

FBI says only 20% of blackmailed victims report to the police while many quietly pay its cryptocurrency demands. So far, US officials have handed over 1,300 people their decryption keys.