The State Department has issued a $10m reward for information that leads to the arrest and/or conviction of Matveev, under its Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program. Thats crazy money but if you look at the damage associated with Mikhail Pavlovich Matveev, or just plain Matveev, it makes sense. Matveev has been linked to Ransowmare campaigns based on LockBit, Hive, and Babuk … which all have caused massive damage and repeatedly associated with large scale compromises.
To learn more about the details of why Matveev is seeing this kind of heat, check out a posting from naked security HERE as well as one from infosecurity HERE.
Why did the state department take this action? according assistant attorney general Kennth Polite of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division“From his home base in Russia, Matveev allegedly used multiple ransomware variants to attack critical infrastructure around the world, including hospitals, government agencies, and victims in other sectors,”.
Who knows if something like this would ever be leveraged or paid out but it does send a message by posting this size of bounty of a threat actor.