The United States is offering up to $10 million for information that would lead to the location of six Russian Sandworm hackers responsible for the most destructive malware attack in 2017.
The U.S. Department of State announced the bounty and identified the six Russian hackers on Tuesday. They are Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko, and Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin.
These six hackers work for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) Unit 7445. Cybersecurity researchers believe that GRU unit 7445 is a notorious hacking group also known as Sandworm, Telebots, Voodoo Bear, and Iron Viking.
According to the U State Department, these six Russian Sandworm hackers were involved in the NotPetya malware attack in the United States and worldwide on June 27, 2017. The cyberattack damaged the computer networks of U.S. entities including the hospitals and other medical facilities in the Heritage Valley Health System in Pennsylvania. The U.S. entities infected by the NotPetya malware collectively suffered almost $1 billion in losses.
