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The Hacker Who Built a Ransomware Empire | Blackfiles | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Hacker Who Built a Ransomware Empire
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The content details the rise and resilience of Dmitri Korv, the mastermind behind the LockBit ransomware operation, who has built a highly profitable "ransomware-as-a-service" empire and continues to evade capture despite significant law enforcement efforts.
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June 2024, US Federal Reserve. 33
terabytes of America's banking secrets
just vanished. The ransom note is on
every screen and has one message. Fire
your negotiator.
$50,000 is insulting. That crab, its
lockbit signature, the world's deadliest
ransomware. Behind it sits one man,
Dimmitri Korv. with 2,000 companies
across 120 countries, Boeing, hospitals,
banks, even the FBI itself. More than
$100 million in counting. Here's what's
insane. Police know exactly who he is.
They've seized his servers, arrested his
gang, and put a $10 million bounty on
his head. Right now, as you watch this,
Dimmitri controls 40% of all ransomware
attacks worldwide. He built crime like
McDonald's built burgers as a franchise.
Hackers log in, pick a target, split the
profits. But how does one man control
half of the hacks on the internet? And
Autumn 2019. Voron, Russia. A
26-year-old programmer sits in a cramped
apartment, fingers flying across a
keyboard. By day, he's Dmitri Koresev.
online. He's lock bits up, a faceless
alias on Russian hacker forums. But
there's something else he is that nobody
knows yet. Something that will explain
everything about how he thinks, how he
operates, and why traditional law
enforcement will never catch him using
conventional methods, surrounded by
empty energy drink cans and glowing
screens of code. Dimmitri isn't plotting
a single bank heist or a one-off virus.
His vision is bigger. He's about to flip
the hacking world on its head. Instead
of running with a traditional gang,
he'll be the godfather of an army of
freelancers. In that dim room, Dimmitri
pieces together a new kind of ransomware
as a service platform. The concept he
provides the sophisticated malware and
infrastructure. Other criminals,
affiliates, do the dirty work of
breaking into targets. When an affiliate
snags a victim and a ransom is paid,
Dimmitri takes a cut off the top. Not a
crew, a franchise, not a hacker, a CEO
of cyber crime. But why would hardened
criminals trust a 26-year-old they've
never met? The answer lies in a single
line of code, Dmitri wrote. A fail safe
that would later save his empire when
everything seemed lost. In a matter of
months, his creation goes live on the
dark web. It's called Lockbit Bit. The
branding is sleek by underworld
standards, a secret website where
affiliates can log in, generate custom
ransomware payloads with point-and-click
ease, then track their victims on a
dashboard. There's even customer support
of sorts for negotiation, and a public
leak site that names and shames victims
who don't pay by publishing stolen data.
Each victim's name on the list comes
with a ticking countdown. Pay up or your
secrets go public. For hackers looking
to make a quick buck, it's a gold rush.
Dimmitri offers an attractive deal. 80%
of each ransom goes to the affiliate.
20% flows back to Lockbit's vault. It's
crime as a service. Highly profitable
and brazenly efficient. By 2021, the
Lockbit franchise explodes. Version 2.0
of the malware is even more potent. And
word spreads in every dark corner of the
internet. If you want to hold a
company's data hostage, Lockbit is the
tool of choice. That summer, Lockbit
makes headlines by hitting one of the
world's biggest tech consultancies,
Accenture, leaking thousands of
documents and demanding $50 million.
Cyber security experts scramble. This
upstart ransomware is running circles
around corporate defenses. With each
strike, Dimmitri's reputation in
underground circles grows. He's known
only by his alias, but affiliates praise
how professional the operation is.
Updates roll out like software releases.
There's even a bug bounty program.
Lockbit 3.0 launches in 2022 with an
invitation for hackers to find flaws in
the malware, paying rewards up to $1
million, a twisted parody of Silicon
Valley innovation. What nobody realizes
is that Dmitri is deliberately leaving
one specific bug unfixed. a bug he
discovered himself. A bug that would
later become his insurance policy.
Lockbit's numbers are staggering. By
late 2023, it's estimated to be behind
nearly 40% of all ransomware attacks
worldwide. Dimmitri's ransomware has
devoured over 2,000 victims in at least
120 countries, from small businesses to
giant multinationals and extracted more
than $100 million in ransom payments.
The group's leak site reads like a hall
of shame for global corporations,
hospitals, banks, airlines, government
agencies. Nothing is off limits. Every
week, another household name company
finds its data locked and a lockbit
timer counting down. And all the while,
the identity of Lockpit's mastermind
remains a mystery. Dimmitri sits quietly
behind his many screens, watching his
empire funnel riches into his crypto
wallets. But he made a mistake. Three
mistakes actually. The first one
happened on a Tuesday morning when he
did something incredibly ordinary. He
ordered pizza. The second mistake, he
was about to make it in exactly 47 days.
The thing is, did someone notice? And
why would ordering pizza matter to the
FBI? More importantly, what was that
fail safe? And how would it save him
when Operation Kronos struck?
February 19th, 2024,
London, pre-dawn.
Inside a fortified cyber command center,
a dozen analysts watch a wall of
monitors with grim focus. They've spent
months hunting the lockpit crew, and
today they're ready to strike back. At
exactly 5 a.m. GMT, a coordinated raid
unfolds across seven countries. In
Amsterdam, Dutch police swoop into a
data center and pull the plug on
critical servers. In Frankfurt, officers
seize racks of blinking machines
suspected to be part of Lockbit's
backend. Simultaneously in the United
States, France, and beyond, agents hit
34 targets, web servers, proxy nodes,
storage drives, any piece of
infrastructure with lockbits,
fingerprints. It's the largest ever
crackdown on a ransomware syndicate. Or
so they think. Because remember that
pizza Dmitri ordered? The delivery
address wasn't his apartment. It was one
of these data centers. and the name on
the receipt. That's where things get
interesting. Within minutes, Dimmitri's
prized dark web portals go black.
Lockbit's leak site, once boasting about
new victims daily, suddenly disappears.
On an underground forum, affiliates
frantically message one another, "Server
not found. What's happening?" Panic
spreads in the ranks of cyber criminals
who relied on lockbits platforms to run
their extortion schemes. For law
enforcement, this is a very visible
victory. But they aren't done. In a bold
twist, investigators had prepared
something special for the gang's public
site. Instead of simply shutting it
down, the UK National Crime Agency
hijacks it. The infamous countdown
timers on the Lockpit blog used to
pressure victims are now ticking towards
something else.
Visitors who find the new site see a
series of leaks about Lockpit itself. In
place of company names and ransom
demands, there are snippets of the
gang's secrets dropped one by one. The
hunters have turned the tables. One-time
is labeled lockbit leader identity
reveal and counts down ominously. For
the first time, Lockbit Sub feels the
heat turn back on him. Or does he?
Because at that exact moment, Dimmitri
is doing something nobody expected. He's
smiling and typing just four words into
a secure chat. Four words that would
change everything. Over the next few
days, more blows land. Authorities
announce arrests. A lockpit affiliate is
caught in Ukraine. Another in Poland.
These are hackers who deployed the
ransomware on victims. Partners in
Dimmitri's franchise. The dominoes are
falling. Meanwhile, forensic analysts
pour over the seized servers. What they
uncover is a treasure. Lockbit's own
records. Here's where it gets weird.
They find a database listing 188
affiliates and one seized crypto wallet
alone holds thousands of Bitcoin worth
tens of millions of dollars.
Investigators even retrieve hundreds of
decryption keys for Lockbit Bits
ransomware. Keys that can free files on
infected computers. Within a week, a
free decryptor tool is released to help
prior victims recover their data,
robbing lockbit of leverage over those
targets. In press conferences, officials
from the FBI, NCA, EU, P all declare a
major victory. For the first time, it
looks like the ransomware kingpin has
been struck a serious blow. But amidst
the backpadding and headlines, one
uncomfortable truth looms. The lockpit
mastermind himself remains in the wind.
In Veronz, Dmitri watches the seizure
notices on three separate screens. His
jaw clenches. Years of work. Gone in 5
hours. His encrypted phone buzzes
non-stop. Affiliates demanding answers.
Some threatening him. His empire is
hemorrhaging $3 million a day. He stands
up, walks to his window. Outside,
Russian snow falls on empty streets. Not
a single cop car in sight. They can
seize his servers, but can't touch him
here. He cracks his knuckles. Types four
words into a secure chat. Give me 4
days. 4 days? What will he make in 4 days?
days?
On February 24th, 2024, a new Darknet
address starts circulating in hacker
circles. Lockbit is back. Despite dozens
of servers seized, Dmitri had backups.
He had quietly segmented his
infrastructure, so operation Kronos only
knocked out part of his network. Now he
executes his contingency plan. He spins
up fresh servers, strengthens passwords,
and posts a defiant message to his
affiliates. We're not done. In an online
chat, Lock Bitsup claims law enforcement
merely exploited a known bug in some
outdated software, scoffing that such an
attack won't work twice. To prevent
another takedown, he decentralizes
everything. The Lockbit affiliate portal
is split across dozens of obscure
servers, each only accessible to vetted
partners. He dubbs this Rebuild Lockbit
4.0, a new version of his empire, more
resilient and paranoid than ever. The
comeback comes with theatrical flare.
The relaunched Lockbit leak site
brazenly lists a slew of new victims.
Some are real, some pure bluff. In one
stunt, the FBI's name appears as a
victim on the site. An obvious lie, but
the message is clear. Dimmitri is
thumbming his nose at the feds. He even
reposts data from old hacks and makes
outrageous threats. At one point,
claiming he'd expose secret documents
from a Trump related court case. It's
propaganda meant to make Lockbit Bit
look as dangerous as ever. But behind
the bluster, the reality is mixed. The
Kronos crackdown rattled Dimmitri's
operation. Internal leaks by police
reveal embarrassing details. Apparently,
over half of Lockbit's affiliates never
received any payout from their hacks.
Many got scammed or arrested before
seeing the profits. Wait, let's say that
again. Over half never got paid. But if
half the affiliates never got paid, that
means Dmitri kept roughly 75% of all
ransom money, not 20% like he claimed.
These revelations so distrust in
Dimmitri's ranks, some wouldbe cyber
criminals start to wonder if partnering
with Lockbit is worth the risk. May 7th, 2024.
2024.
The US Attorney General steps up to a
podium and unseals a stack of
indictments. For the first time, Dmitri
Yuryvich Korv is called out by name as
the creator and admin of Lockbit Bit.
The announcement is coordinated with
allies. The UK and EU issue sanctions,
freezing any assets Dmitri holds in
their jurisdictions. The US State
Department announces a bounty of $10
million for information leading to his
arrest. A delicious irony. Dimmitri once
arrogantly offered $10 million of his
own to anyone who could dox him,
convinced he was untraceable. Now that
exact sum is on his head. But there's
something about that $10 million bounty
that doesn't add up. The FBI has paid
out that exact amount only three times
in history. All three times the target
was captured within 60 days. It's been
200 days since Dimmitri's bounty was
announced. Why is he still free? The
answer is simple and terrifying. Someone
doesn't want him caught. But who and
why? But exposure is not capture. Back
in Russia, Dmitri remains a free man
protected by a government that has never
extradited its hackers to the west. He
has little to fear on home soil. In
fact, as the world condemns him, he
seems almost to shrug. Reports suggest
he continues to live openly in his
hometown. No secret bunker or frantic
escape. He's literally tending his
garden. Neighbors see a quiet
31-year-old going about daily life, even
as the FBI plasters his name on most
wanted lists. But unless he makes the
mistake of vacationing in a country with
an extradition treaty, Dimmitri is
untouchable. By early June 2024, barely
a month after being unmasked, Dmitri
decides to prove that neither arrests
nor bounties have slowed him down. In a
dramatic show of force, Lockpit's new
iteration claims to breach an
institution at the core of global
finance, the US Federal Reserve.
Remember that first screen flicker 3
weeks before the attack? That was
Dimmitri's second mistake, testing his
access too early. But his third mistake,
the one that could destroy everything,
he used the same pizza delivery service
for his victory celebration. Same fake
name, same data center address. And this
time, someone was watching. Someone
who'd been waiting for exactly this
pattern. It's a heist that would dwarf
all others. 33 terabytes of Federal
Reserve data allegedly in their hands.
Skeptics wonder if the gang really
infiltrated the Fed or if they're
piggybacking on a lesser incident at a
contractor bank. Either way, the ransom
demand is made public and the clock
starts ticking. The hackers post a smug
note ordering officials to hire a better
negotiator and ridiculing their offer of $50,000.
$50,000.
The implication is clear. Dimmitri
Korashev, now one of the most wanted men
on the planet, is openly poking the
bear. Is he truly untouchable? The once
invincible king of ransomware, has been
named and shamed, yet he continues to
operate in plain sight. Governments
scrambled his infrastructure and
splashed his photo across the evening
news. Yet here he is still dictating
terms to the West. It seems absurd. It
feels infuriating and it forces a bleak
question. After all the takedowns, task
forces, and talk, can anyone really stop
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