Japan’s National Police Agency says an international law enforcement operation has taken down a suspected developer of ransomware used by the LockBit criminal group.
LockBit is an international hacker group that has repeatedly launched ransomware cyberattacks against various organizations across the world.
Europol, the European Union enforcement agency, earlier announced that it had arrested a total of three purported LockBit members in February and May.
The Japanese police agency says a new series of law enforcement efforts involving 12 countries led to four new arrests. French authorities arrested the suspected ransomware developer, and the British and Spanish authorities arrested two and one LockBit-related individuals respectively.
LockBit is known to have leaked stolen data on the dark web if victims refuse to pay a ransom.
The group is responsible for more than 100 cyberattacks against organizations in Japan.
In one of the cases, an attack caused a massive system failure and disrupted operations at container terminals in the port of Nagoya, central Japan, last year.
The police agency says a tool developed by Japanese police and furnished to Europol helped restore stolen data that had been encrypted.
The agency plans to continue to cooperate with its counterparts abroad to crack down on cybercrimes.