{"id":173988,"date":"2026-01-02T09:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/02\/cybersecurity-experts-face-20-years-in-prison-following-ransomware-campaign\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T10:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T15:35:08","slug":"cybersecurity-experts-face-20-years-in-prison-following-ransomware-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/02\/cybersecurity-experts-face-20-years-in-prison-following-ransomware-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity experts face 20 years in prison following ransomware campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cybersecurity experts face 20 years in prison following ransomware campaign<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.itpro.com\/security\/cyber-crime\/cybersecurity-experts-face-20-years-in-prison-following-ransomware-campaign<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-01-02 09:16:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.itpro.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

Two US cybersecurity experts have pleaded guilty to using ALPHV BlackCat ransomware to extort businesses across the USA during a seven-month campaign in 2023.40-year-old Ryan Goldberg of Georgia and 36-year-old Kevin Martin of Texas, admitted conspiring to obstruct, delay, or affect commerce through extortion in a federal district court in the Southern District of Florida.Goldberg was an incident response manager at the time he and Martin, as well as one other unnamed individual, turned their skills to nefarious activities. Martin, meanwhile, was a ransomware threat negotiator.Their campaign, which ran from April to December 2023, saw the trio turn to ALPHV BlackCat ransomware as a service operators, who they agreed to pay 20% share of any ransoms received in exchange for access to the ransomware and extortion platformThey then successfully used the malware against numerous US targets, including a pharmaceutical company based in Maryland, an engineering company based in California, a drone manufacturer in Virginia, and a medical company from Florida, where the case was heard.One victim paid the equivalent of $1.2 million in Bitcoin in order to put an end to the attack, with the proceeds split three ways between the conspirators after they had given the ALPHV BlackCat administrators their cut.Assistant attorney general A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department\u2019s Criminal Division said: \u201cThese defendants used their sophisticated cybersecurity training and experience to commit ransomware attacks \u2014 the very type of crime that they should have been working to stop.\u201dSign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report – the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executivesMillions of dollars saved following ransomware disruptionALPHV BlackCat was active for 18 months before the FBI developed a decryption tool for the ransomware, extorting millions of dollars from businesses primarily in the US before going dark in December 2023. The law enforcement agency estimates it saved victims in the order of $99 million in ransomware payments.\u201cThe FBI remains committed to working alongside its law enforcement partners to disrupt and dismantle criminal enterprises involved in ransomware attacks and to hold accountable not only the perpetrators but also anyone who knowingly enables or profits from them,\u201d said special agent in charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office.US attorney Jason A Reding Qui\u00f1ones, representing the Southern District of Florida, said: \u201cGoldberg and Martin used trusted access and technical skill to extort American victims and profit from digital coercion.\u201d\u201cTheir guilty pleas make clear that cybercriminals operating from within the United States will be found, prosecuted, and held to account,\u201d he added.The pair are set to be sentenced on 12 March 2026 and face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cybersecurity experts face 20 years in prison following ransomware campaign https:\/\/www.itpro.com\/security\/cyber-crime\/cybersecurity-experts-face-20-years-in-prison-following-ransomware-campaign Publish Date: 2026-01-02 09:16:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/LEn4RWFLrJ7FxZPhnQgKsP-1920-80.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,24,32],"class_list":["post-173988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity","tag-malware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173990,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173988\/revisions\/173990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}