Four Russian nationals, who were suspected of deploying a variant of Phobos ransomware to extort payments from people in Europe and beyond, were arrested last week, the pan-European police agency Europol said on Tuesday.

An international law-enforcement collaboration has taken down two Russian nationals and two unidentified women who ran ransomware affiliate platforms in Thailand.

A complex international operation involving 14 coordinated law enforcement agencies led to the arrest of four Russian nationals behind the 8Base ransomware group. View on euronews

A global law enforcement operation targeting the Phobos ransomware gang has led to the arrest of four suspected hackers in Phuket, Thailand, and the seizure of 8Base's dark web sites. The suspects are accused of conducting cyberattacks on over 1,

The 8Base ransomware gang has been active since 2022 but ramped up its activities in mid-2023. The group is suspected of deploying Phobos ransomware to extort over $16 million from more than 1,000 victims worldwide.

Since the group's debut in early 2022, 8base has reportedly engaged with high-profile targets, such as the Nidec Corporation, which had over 50,000 files stolen, a ‘huge amount’ of them being confidential, in a cyberattack late in 2024.

The U.S. Justice Department announced the names of two Phobos ransomware affiliates arrested yesterday in Thailand, charging them on 11 counts due to their involvement in more than a thousand cyberattacks.

Base used a variant of the Phobos ransomware strain to hit numerous companies. The suspects, all Russian nationals, were found in Thailand.

The Russian nationals are accused of launching more than 1,000 ransomware attacks worldwide to steal $16 million