U.S. Department of Justice announces the seizure of $500,000 ransom payments made to Maui ransomware

On Tuesday 19^th of July 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the seizure of paid ransom payments totalled at approximately $500,000 in Bitcoin. These ransoms was paid by American health care providers to the operators of the Maui ransomware strain.

It was revealed that as soon as the discovery of the ransomware strain was found, a Kansas hospital reported a security incident involving the Maui ransomware strain to the FBI.

“Thanks to rapid reporting and cooperation from a victim, the FBI, and Justice Department prosecutors have disrupted the activities of a North Korean state-sponsored group deploying ransomware known as ‘Maui’,” – Lisa O. Monaco, Deputy Attorney General.

Due to the Kanas hospital reporting the incident soon after discovering it, it led to FBI and Department of Justice being able to recover the ransom payment of $100,000 as well as identifying and tracking another ransom payment of $120,000 from a medical provider in Colorado shortly afterward. These two payments and an undisclosed number of payments amounting to $280,000 were eventually seized in May 2022, so the total retrieval was roughly half a million USD.