REvil

As part of the criminal cybergang's operations, they are known for stealing nearly one terabyte of information from the law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks and demanding a ransom to not publish it.[10][11][12] The group had attempted to extort other companies and public figures as well.

In May 2020 they demanded $42 million from US president Donald Trump.[13][14] The group claimed to have done this by deciphering the elliptic-curve cryptography that the firm used to protect its data.[15] According to an interview with an alleged member, they found a buyer for Trump information, but this cannot be confirmed.[16] In the same interview, the member claimed that they would bring in $100 million ransoms in 2020.

On 16 May 2020, the group released legal documents totaling a size of 2.4 GB related to the singer Lady Gaga.[17] The following day, they released 169 "harmless" e-mails which referred to Donald Trump or contained the word 'trump'.[11]

They were planning on selling Madonna's information,[18] but eventually reneged.[19]

On 27 March 2021, REvil attacked Harris Federation and published multiple financial documents of the federation to its blog. As a result, the IT systems of the federation were shut down for some weeks, affecting up to 37,000 students.[20]

On 18 March 2021, an REvil affiliate claimed on their data leak site that they had downloaded data from multinational hardware and electronics corporation Acer, as well as installing ransomware, which has been linked to the 2021 Microsoft Exchange Server data breach by cybersecurity firm Advanced Intel, which found first signs of Acer servers being targeted from 5 March 2021. A US$50 million ransom was demanded to decrypt the undisclosed number of systems and for the downloaded files to be deleted, increasing to US$100 million if not paid by 28 March 2021.[21]

In April 2021, REvil stole plans for upcoming Apple products from Quanta Computer, including purported plans for Apple laptops and an Apple Watch. REvil threatened to release the plans publicly unless they receive $50 million.[22][23]

On 30 May 2021, JBS S.A. was attacked by ransomware which forced the temporary shutdown of all the company’s U.S. beef plants and disrupted operations at poultry and pork plants. A few days later, the White House announced that REvil may be responsible for the JBS S.A. cyberattack. The FBI confirmed the connection in a follow-up statement on Twitter.[24] JBS paid an $11 million ransom in Bitcoin to REvil.

On 11 June 2021, Invenergy reported that they were attacked by ransomware. Later, REvil claimed to be responsible.[25]

On 2 July 2021, hundreds of managed service providers had REvil ransomware dropped on their systems through Kaseya desktop management software.[26] REvil demanded $70 million to restore encrypted data.[27] As a consequence the Swedish Coop grocery store chain was forced to close 800 stores during several days.[28][29]

On 7 July 2021, REvil hacked the computers of Florida-based space and weapon-launch technology contractor HX5, which counts the Army, Navy, Air Force, and NASA among its clients, publicly releasing stolen documents on its Happy Blog. The New York Times judged the documents to not be of "vital consequence".[30]

After a July 9 phone call between United States president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin, Biden told the press, "I made it very clear to him that the United States expects when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil even though it’s not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on who that is." Biden later added that the United States would take the group's servers down if Putin did not.[31][32]

On 13 July 2021, REvil websites and other infrastructure vanished from the internet.[33] Politico cited an unnamed senior administration official as stating that "we don't know exactly why they've [REvil] stood down;" the official also did not discount the possibility that Russia shut down the group or forced it to shut down.[34]

On 23 July 2021, Kaseya announced it had received the decryption key for the files encrypted in the July 2 Kaseya VSA ransomware attack from an unnamed "trusted third party", later discovered to be the FBI who had withheld the key for three weeks, and was helping victims restore their files.[35] The key was withheld to avoid tipping off REvil of an FBI effort to take down their servers, which ultimately proved unnecessary after the hackers went offline without intervention.[36]

In September 2021, Romanian cybersecurity firm Bitdefender published a free universal decryptor utility to help victims of the REvil/Sodinokibi ransomware recover their encrypted files, if they were encrypted before July 13, 2021.[37] From September until early November, the decryptor was used by more than 1,400 companies to avoid paying over $550 million in ransom and allow them to recover their files.[38]

On 22 September 2021, malware researchers identified a backdoor built into REvil malware that allowed the original gang members to conduct double-chats and cheat their affiliates out of any ransomware payments.[39] Ransomware affiliates who were cheated reportedly posted their claims on a "Hacker's Court", undermining trust in REvil by affiliates. Newer versions of REvil malware reportedly had the backdoor removed.[40]

On 21 October 2021, REvil servers were hacked in a multi-country operation and forced offline. VMWare's head of cybersecurity strategy said "The FBI, in conjunction with Cyber Command, the Secret Service and like-minded countries, have truly engaged in significant disruptive actions against these groups,”. A REvil gang member attempted to restore their servers from backups that had also been compromised.[41]