TECH NEWS – Authorities in various Western countries and agencies have shut down Ragnar Locker, the ransomware group that hacked Capcom in 2020.

The European Union’s law enforcement cooperation agency has taken down the Ragnar Locker Ransomware group. The one responsible for the 2020 Capcom hack. The ransomware group previously compromised Capcom’s various corporate and consumer data and exposed some of its newly released games.

The Ragnar Locker Ransomware Group was one of the most dangerous of its kind: the group is believed to have been behind attacks on around 200 international companies since 2020, including Capcom.

Fans may recall that the group was responsible for prematurely revealing Street Fighter 6 and the then-in-development Resident Evil 4 remake. Capcom also confirmed that the Ragnar Locker Ransomware group managed to steal and leak not only its sales reports, financial data and confidential company data but also the personal data of customers and employees.

Nearly three years after the data breach, Europol and the European Criminal Cooperation Agency shut down the ransomware group behind the operation as part of a joint international operation. Europol said in a statement that authorities arrested the “key target of this malicious ransomware strain” in Paris, France, and searched the key target’s home in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, law enforcement authorities questioned five suspects in Spain and Latvia in the following days.

Europol managed to bring the main perpetrator, a suspected developer of the Ragnar Locker Ransomware group, “in front of the examining magistrates of the Paris Judicial Court.”

Europol’s joint international operation follows an investigation by the French National Gendarmerie. The latter was conducted in cooperation with law enforcement authorities in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Ukraine, and the United States. The head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, Edvardas Šileris, hopes that the takedown of the Ragnar Locker Ransomware group will send a “definite message” to ransomware operators who believe they can continue their attacks without consequence.

Even if Europol has busted the Ragnar Locker Ransomware group, individual hackers and groups like them are likely to continue to target and attack game companies and developers.

Earlier this month, Sony confirmed that it had suffered two major data breaches this year. The first occurred on May 28, and the second at the end of September. Sony has already notified current and former employees and their families about the first breach (which exposed their confidential data). It assured customers and business partners that there was no indication that their personal data had been compromised in the second breach. Sony has yet to say whether the second breach led to the leak.

Source: Europol