The police force’s official website indicated on Monday, that the network’s leader was identified and arrested by agents from the Cybersecurity Operations Center in the northern city of Milan, following a coordinated investigation with the Postal Police.

The investigation began after complaints were filed by several companies in the Lombardy region specializing in graphic design and film production, as well as non-governmental organizations, who suffered ransomware attacks, blocking access to data and demanding payment to restore it.

The victims reported that their computer systems had been encrypted, halting their production processes.

To regain access to their data and resume operations, they had to pay the cybercriminals a large cryptocurrency ransom, the document states.

The investigation, coordinated by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office, was carried out on two fronts: one focused on an exhaustive forensic analysis of the computer systems attacked by the hacking group, and the second focused on examining the blockchain for cryptocurrency payments.

A working group coordinated by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) was also created, with the participation of French and Romanian security services.

This made it possible to determine that an active Romanian hacking group calling itself Diskstation was behind these attacks.

Following the capture of the leader of that group, a 44-year-old man whose identity was not revealed, the operation continues to arrest other individuals involved in these criminal acts, the source adds.

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