Former ransomware negotiator under US probe

The U.S. Department of Justice was reported to have commenced a criminal probe into a former ransomware negotiator working for Chicago-based incident response and digital asset services firm DigitalMint over alleged profiteering from ransomware operations' extortion schemes, according to BleepingComputer.

Such investigation has been confirmed by DigitalMint, which promptly moved to terminate the employee following the accusations but has not provided details regarding the suspect's arrest. "We acted swiftly to protect our clients and have been cooperating with law enforcement," said DigitalMint CEO Jonathan Solomon. Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI has commented on the reported probe. Such a development comes six years after a ProPublica report detailing U.S. data recovery organizations' covert dealings with ransomware groups, with Coveware CEO Bill Siegel noting such entities' absence of a fixed-fee structure to contribute to possible abuse. "Business models that are financially incentivized towards larger transaction volume and higher transaction size do NOT fit within the incident response industry," Siegel said.