On Apr. 30, two American cybersecurity professionals were imprisoned for their role in a string of 2023 ransomware attacks. Ryan Goldberg, 40, of Georgia, and Kevin Martin, 36, of Texas, were sentenced for conspiracy to impede, delay, or impact commerce through extortion in connection with these attacks. 

Goldberg and Martin (along with a third co-conspirator, Angelo Martino, 41, of Florida) deployed the ALPHV BlackCat ransomware between April 2023 and December 2023 and targeted victims throughout the United States, agreeing to pay a 20% ransom share to the administrators of ALPHV BlackCat. Upon extorting one victim for $1.2 million in Bitcoin, the three divided their 80% into thirds and laundered it. 

All three men worked in the cybersecurity industry, giving them unique insights into perpetuating these cybercrimes. 

“The court’s sentences today reflect the damage that these defendants inflicted during their cyberattacks on victim companies throughout the United States,” comments the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva. “They harmed important firms who were providing medical and engineering services. They played hardball with them, going so far as to cause the leak of patient data from a doctor’s office victim. They also split the ransoms they were paid, and laundered the illicit proceeds. These were supposed to be cybersecurity specialists who did good and helped businesses and people. Instead, they used their high-level cyber skills to feed their greed. Ransomware attackers like this should be punished and removed from society to serve their lawful sentences so they cannot harm others.”