US cybersecurity experts plead guilty to BlackCat ransomware attacks

Two former incident‑response professionals pleaded guilty to conspiring in BlackCat (ALPHV) ransomware attacks on multiple U.S. organizations between May and November 2023, accessing the ransomware-as-a-service platform for a share of ransoms; victims included healthcare, manufacturing, engineering, and medical practices with demanded ransoms from $300,000 to $10 million and at least $1.27 million paid by one victim. The report notes the FBI breached BlackCat servers, produced a decryption tool, and found the operation collected at least $300 million from over 1,000 victims through September 2023; sentencing for the two defendants is scheduled for March 12, 2026.