Foreign National Admits Guilt in $15,000,000 Bitcoin Ransomware Attacks on U.S. Firms

A foreign national has admitted his central role in ransomware attacks that disrupted businesses across the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice said. The defendant, extradited from abroad, entered the plea in federal court on charges of conspiracy and computer fraud. Prosecutors link him directly to the Ryuk ransomware strain used in operations against U.S. companies during 2019 and 2020. Authorities describe the scheme as a coordinated effort that encrypted victim systems and demanded payments for decryption keys. Vardanyan worked with his co-conspirators to attack a company in Michigan that paid 200 bitcoin or over $1.1 million at the time of payment to restore access to their network. They also attacked a company in Wilsonville, Oregon, and in February 2020 attacked a school in Texas. Vardanyan and his co-conspirators illegally accessed computer networks of victim companies and deployed ransomware on hundreds of compromised servers and workstations. Vardanyan and his co-conspirators are alleged to have received approximately 1,610 bitcoins in ransom payments from the victim companies, which was valued at over $15 million at the time of payment. The guilty plea resolves the case without a trial and highlights ongoing international efforts to hold ransomware operators accountable.