The US State Department has announced a reward of up to $10 million for information that would allow to identify or locate high-ranking members of the Conti ransomware gang.

The US authorities also offer a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of any individual in any country conspiring to participate in or attempting to participate in a Conti variant ransomware incident.

Over the past few years, the Conti ransomware group had been behind hundreds of ransomware incidents. According to the FBI, as of January 2022, there had been over 1,000 victims of attacks associated with Conti ransomware with victim payouts exceeding $150 million making the Conti ransomware the costliest strain of ransomware ever documented.

At the end of February 2022, a Twitter user known as “ContiLeaks” released thousands of internal messages belonging to members of the Conti ransomware group after the gang sided with the Russian government on the invasion of Ukraine. Shortly after, ContiLeaks released more data related to Conti ransomware gang, including the source code for the group's administrative panel, the BazarBackdoor API, as well as a newer version of Conti ransomware source code, with the last modified dates being January 25, 2021.

Since the end of March, a pro-Ukraine hacker group NB65 believed to be responsible for attacks against several Russian entities, including Russian space agency Roscosmos, and the state-owned Russian Television and Radio broadcaster VGTRK, has been targeting Russian organizations with a ransomware variant created using Conti’s leaked source code.

Cybersecurity Help statement on the critical situation in Ukraine

On February 24, people in many cities and towns across Ukraine woke up to the sounds of explosions and artillery fire, as the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of the country. Such actions are unacceptable, political ambitions of any man aren’t worth of blood, tears, and destruction of millions of lives. We give our full support to the Ukrainian people in these hard times. No more war! Слава Україні!