An Armenian man extradited from Ukraine to the United States has been charged over his alleged role in Ryuk ransomware attacks.
Karen Serobovich Vardanyan was arrested in Kyiv in April, and was extradited to the United States on June 18. Ukrainian authorities announced shortly after the extradition that a 33-year-old suspected of being involved in Ryuk ransomware attacks had been arrested and extradited, but his identity was not made public at the time.
The US Justice Department has now revealed that the suspect is Vardanyan. He has been charged with conspiracy, fraud in connection with computers, and extortion in connection with computers.
He faces up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 for each count. The suspect has pleaded not guilty. He will remain in custody until his trial, set to start in late August.
Vardanyan has been charged alongside Levon Georgiyovych Avetisyan, who is also an Armenian national facing the same charges in the US. He has been detained in France and the United States has asked for his extradition.
Ukrainian nationals Oleg Nikolayevich Lyulyava and Andrii Leonydovich Prykhodchenko, both 53, have also been charged, but they remain at large.
According to the Justice Department, Vardanyan and the others deployed the file-encrypting Ryuk ransomware on hundreds of servers and workstations between March 2019 and September 2020.
Ukrainian authorities said the cybercrime gang that Vardanyan was part of carried out over 2,400 cyberattacks and received more than $100 million in ransom payments.
The Justice Department said the Armenian national and his accomplices received over 1,600 bitcoins from victims, valued at more than $15 million at the time of payment.
Ryuk has not been in the news in recent years and it’s unclear if the malware still poses a threat to organizations.
Vardanyan is not the first individual to be prosecuted in the United States over involvement in the Ryuk ransomware operation. In 2023, a Russian national who pleaded guilty to charges related to laundering money for the ransomware group was sentenced to time served.
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