FBI And Canadian Police Cooperate, Arresting Ransomware Perpetrators Who Have Been Fugitive For Two Years

JAKARTA - A 31-year-old Ottawa man has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out ransomware attacks in the United States and Canada after a joint investigation of the two countries that took nearly two years, police said Tuesday, December 7.

According to the Ontario Provincial Police, cited by Reuters, Matthew Philbert is responsible for multiple ransomware attacks affecting businesses, government agencies, and private individuals across Canada as well as cyber-related offenses in the United States.

Philbert was taken into custody following a 23-month joint investigation between Canadian police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which contacted Canada in early 2020 for assistance with the ransomware attack. Philbert has been charged with fraud, damage, and unauthorized access of computer systems.

In Anchorage, the US attorney's office said Philbert tampered with computers in Alaska in April 2018. He faces one charge of a conspiracy by the US for fraud and one count of fraud.

Canada's signal intelligence agency said Monday that global ransomware attacks increased 151% in the first half of 2021 compared to 2020.

In recent years, the US has also taken ransomware more seriously. They even hunted the perpetrators of the ransomware as far as Russia.

The US President, Joe Biden, even lobbied Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to take the same action and hand over the alleged perpetrators of the ransomware.

But Biden's request did not get the response it deserved from Putin. There is even an impression that Russia is protecting its citizens who carry out ransomware attacks on a number of important companies in the US.

This condition is different from Canada which immediately welcomes cooperation with the US to arrest the perpetrators of ransomware as was done to Philbert.