{"id":238743,"date":"2026-05-01T07:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T20:06:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T00:06:30","slug":"two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang\/","title":{"rendered":"Two US Security Experts Sentenced to Prison for Helping Ransomware Gang"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.securityweek.com\/two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang\/\">Two US Security Experts Sentenced to Prison for Helping Ransomware Gang<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.securityweek.com\/two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang\/\">https:\/\/www.securityweek.com\/two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-01 07:37:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.securityweek.com\">www.securityweek.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Two cybersecurity experts from the United States have been sentenced to prison over charges related to their role in ransomware attacks.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ryan Goldberg of Georgia and Kevin Martin of Texas were each given a 4-year prison sentence after they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct or affect interstate commerce by extortion.<\/p>\n<p>A third US-based cybersecurity professional who also took part in the ransomware scheme, Angelo Martino from Florida, also pleaded guilty recently and is awaiting sentencing.<\/p>\n<p>The three men were working at cybersecurity firms \u2014 two of them as ransomware negotiators \u2014 when they decided to conduct ransomware attacks against several companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They used the ransomware known as BlackCat and Alphv to target victims, paying 20% of the ransom to the cybercrime operation\u2019s administrators.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Authorities said the hackers who turned from white-hat to black-hat received roughly $1.2 million from one victim and laundered their 80% cut through various methods.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"zox-ad-label\">Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Martino\u2019s sentencing is scheduled for July 9.<\/p>\n<p>More than 1,000 organizations were targeted in BlackCat ransomware attacks between November 2021 and December 2023, when the operation was disrupted by authorities. A few months later, the cybercriminals received a $22 million ransom from a victim and pulled an exit scam.<\/p>\n<p>The US has been offering a $10 million reward for information on key members of the ransomware group, but no charges have been announced to date.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related<\/strong>: FBI Warns of Surge in Hacker-Enabled Cargo Theft<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related<\/strong>: Alleged Chinese State Hacker Extradited to US<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related<\/strong>: British Scattered Spider Hacker Pleads Guilty in the US\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.securityweek.com\/two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two US Security Experts Sentenced to Prison for Helping Ransomware Gang https:\/\/www.securityweek.com\/two-us-security-experts-sentenced-to-prison-for-helping-ransomware-gang\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-01&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.securityweek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/BlackCat-ransomware-scaled.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24,35],"class_list":["post-238743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity","tag-hacker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238745,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238743\/revisions\/238745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}