Australia has publicly identified and sanctioned a Russian individual for his alleged participation in a 2022 ransomware attack, marking the country's first application of the penalty.
The hacker collected sensitive personal data from 9.7 million Medibank clients, one of Australia's major private health insurers, including names, birth dates, medical information, and Medicare numbers. Australian officials claim that some of these records were released on the dark web.
At the time, the Australian Federal Police stated that detectives knew who the assailants were but declined to identify them. On Tuesday, the Australian government published the name of the sanctioned individual: 33-year-old Russian national Aleksandr Ermakov, an accused member of the Russian ransomware group REvil.
According to a government news release, providing Ermakov with assets, as well as using or dealing with his assets, whether through bitcoin wallets or ransomware payments, is a criminal act under the sanctions. The crime is punished by up to ten years in jail. Ermakov has also been banned from traveling by the authorities.
Australian authorities have "worked tirelessly over the past 18 months to unmask those responsible for the cyberattack on Medibank Private," said Richard Marles, deputy prime minister and defense minister, in a statement.
Source: CNN
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