Maksim Silnikau, considered by U.S. authorities as the creator and leader of Ransom Cartel, has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for his involvement in one of the most active ransomware-as-a-service operations in recent years.
Silnikau, 40, used aliases such as J.P. Morgan, targa, xxx, and lansky and had been linked to underground cybercrime forums for nearly two decades. Ransom Cartel began operating in late 2021, and its affiliates attacked at least 18 organizations between that year and 2023.
The group stole information from its victims before encrypting their systems and demanded a ransom in exchange for decryption keys or not publishing the stolen data. U.S. prosecutors attribute to Silnikau the management of the infrastructure used to coordinate the attacks, negotiate with victims, and distribute the profits.
Cybersecurity researchers detected similarities between Ransom Cartel and REvil, although it has not been determined whether the operation was directly inherited from this group or if it used reused or leaked code.
Silnikau was arrested in Spain in July 2023. He was later transferred to Poland and, in 2024, extradited to the U.S. to face justice in the North American country.
His arrest significantly contributed to disrupting Ransom Cartel’s operations, although the ransomware-as-a-service model he helped popularize continues to be one of the main threats to businesses and organizations.
Two decades of cyber mischief
Ransom Cartel is just one of the operations attributed to Silnikau. According to the indictment, the cybercriminal participated alongside Volodymyr Kadariya and Andrei Tarasov in the creation of Reveton in 2011, one of the first ransomware-as-a-service models.
Between 2012 and 2014, Reveton reportedly generated around $400,000 monthly through extortion. The hacker has also been linked to Angler Exploit Kit, a tool used during the 2010s to distribute malware through malicious advertising campaigns.
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