securityweek.comarticleFake Decryption Tools Masked $11M Markup in Ransomware Recovery Scheme
Zohar Pinhasi, owner of MonsterCloud (aka 'Zack Silver'/'Zack Green'), was indicted for wire fraud after allegedly telling ransomware victims his firm used proprietary decryption tools to recover data without paying attackers — while secretly paying the ransomware groups for decryption keys and charging clients massively inflated fees. The indictment alleges he paid over $8 million in ransoms to attackers while billing victim organizations over $19 million, including one case where an $8,200 ransom payment was billed to a client as $150,000.
TL;DR MonsterCloud's owner is charged with secretly paying ransomware gangs for decryption keys while claiming proprietary tech, then billing clients a huge markup ($8M paid to attackers vs. $19M charged to victims).
Organisations named here
- wire fraud
Technologies named here
- MonsterCloud
Techniques named here
- Ransomware remediation fraud
Threat actors named here
- Zohar Pinhasi
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