Angelo Martino, a Florida man, was sentenced to more than five years in prison for conspiring with hackers to deploy ransomware while working as a ransomware negotiator for a U.S. cybersecurity company.
The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the ruling on Thursday, noting that the government had seized more than $10 million worth of cryptocurrencies and assets. Martino allegedly used the funds he stole from the hack to purchase assets such as a food truck and a luxury fishing boat.
Martino is the third person to be imprisoned over the scheme, joining previously incarcerated cybersecurity experts Kevin Martin and Ryan Goldberg. Prosecutors say the three worked together to deploy BlackCat ransomware to businesses in the United States throughout 2023. In one attack, criminal cyber experts extorted approximately $1.2 million from a company, laundered the money, and split it into three parts.
The investigation highlighted an unusual case in which a security professional worked for a malicious hacker during his employment. Although governments have long advised victims of hacking and extortion not to pay ransoms to prevent cybercriminals from profiting, some companies still do so to prevent their customers' personal data from being compromised.
The extortion attack helped establish an entire insurance subsector in the United States to respond to ransomware and extortion attacks. Some companies in this field employ negotiators to lower the cost of ransoms.
BlackCat (also known as ALPHV) is a ransomware-as-a-service operation that allows independent hackers, known as affiliates, to lend access to the gang's file-encrypting malware in exchange for a cut of the profits from their cyberattacks.
The group's ransomware was famously used to steal highly sensitive medical and billing data for more than 192 million Americans during the February 2024 hack of US medical technology giant Change Healthcare, although the affiliated hackers responsible for the 2024 data breach have not been identified.
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