The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Monday against Evgenii Ptitsyn, 42, a Russian national, for allegedly administering the sale, distribution, and operation of Phobos ransomware.
Ptitsyn made his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Nov. 4 after being extradited from South Korea. Phobos ransomware, through its affiliates, victimized more than 1,000 public and private entities in the United States and around the world and extorted ransom payments worth more than $16 million dollars.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated that Evgenii Ptitsyn allegedly extorted millions of dollars of ransom payments from thousands of victims and now faces justice in the United States thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of law enforcement agencies around the world — from the Republic of Korea to Japan to Europe and finally to Baltimore, Maryland.
The indictment alleged that Ptitsyn and his co-conspirators ran the Phobos ransomware group, whose members committed ransomware attacks against more than 1,000 public and private victims throughout the U.S. and the rest of the world.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, explained that Ptitsyn and his co-conspirators hacked not only large corporations but also schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and a federally recognised tribe, and they extorted more than $16 million in ransom payments.
Ptitsyn’s indictment, arrest, and extradition reflect the “Criminal Division’s commitment to leading the fight against the international scourge of ransomware.”
Ptitsyn added, “We are especially grateful to our domestic and foreign law enforcement partners, like South Korea, whose collaboration is essential to disrupting and deterring the most significant cybercriminal threats facing the United States.”
“It’s only a matter of time, cybercriminals will be caught and brought to justice,” said U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron for the District of Maryland. “According to the indictment, Ptitsyn facilitated the worldwide use of a dangerous ransomware strain to target corporations and various organizations, including government agencies, healthcare facilities, educational institutions, and critical infrastructure. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland is committed to bringing cybercriminals to justice and working with the private sector and the academic community to prevent and disrupt their activities.”
“The FBI is working tirelessly to ensure that ransomware actors, both developers and affiliates, face the consequences of their actions,” said Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran of the FBI’s Cyber Division. “We know it takes strong partnerships to disrupt cybercriminal networks, and the FBI must thank our partners for the important roles they play in carrying out this mission. The extradition announced today would not have been possible without their assistance.”
As alleged in the indictment, beginning in at least November 2020, Ptitsyn and others conspired to engage in an international computer hacking and extortion scheme that victimized public and private entities through the deployment of Phobos ransomware.
As part of the scheme, Ptitsyn and his co-conspirators allegedly developed and offered access to Phobos ransomware to other criminals or “affiliates” for the purposes of encrypting victims’ data and extorting ransom payments from victims.
The administrators operated a darknet website to coordinate the sale and distribution of Phobos ransomware to co-conspirators and used online monikers to advertise their services on criminal forums and messaging platforms. At relevant times, Ptitsyn allegedly used the monikers “derxan” and “zimmermanx.”
Affiliates would then allegedly hack into the victims’ computer networks, often using stolen or otherwise unauthorized credentials; copy and steal files and programs on the victims’ networks; and encrypt the original versions of the stolen data on the networks by installing and executing Phobos ransomware.
Affiliates then extorted the victims for ransom payments in exchange for the decryption keys to regain access to encrypted data by leaving ransom notes on compromised victims’ computers and by calling and emailing victims to initiate the ransom payment negotiations. Affiliates also threatened to expose victims’ stolen files to the public or to the victims’ clients, customers, or constituents if the ransoms were not paid.
After a successful Phobos ransomware attack, criminal affiliates paid fees to Phobos administrators like Ptitsyn for a decryption key to regain access to the encrypted files. Each deployment of Phobos ransomware was assigned a unique alphanumeric string in order to match it to the corresponding decryption key, and each affiliate was directed to pay the decryption key fee to a cryptocurrency wallet unique to that affiliate.
From December 2021 to April 2024, the decryption key fees were then transferred from the unique affiliate cryptocurrency wallet to a wallet controlled by Ptitsyn.
Ptitsyn is charged with a 13-count indictment of wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, four counts of causing intentional damage to protected computers, and four counts of extortion in relation to hacking.
If convicted, Ptitsyn faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count, 10 years for each computer hacking count, and five years for conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse.
