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Australia has joined the United States and the United Kingdom in imposing sanctions on a Russian cybercrime organization and its leaders that the Albanian government says facilitated attacks in Australia.
Home Secretary Tony Burke said cybercrime is one of the fastest growing threats and the government is ready to confront it.
“We will continue to do everything we can to disrupt networks and alienate individuals directing cyber attacks against Australia and Australian interests,” he said in a statement.
Home Secretary Tony Burke. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The government said Russian cybercrime service providers, collectively known as Media Land, provided cybercriminals with ransomware infrastructure, allowing them to launch attacks.
“Media Land helped criminals launch attacks against Australian financial institutions, Australian businesses, their customers and critical international infrastructure,” he said in a press release.
The sanctions make providing assets to, or using or dealing with, Russian cybercrime service providers (Media Land LLC and ML. Cloud LLC) or two key personnel (Aleksandr Alexandrovich Volosovik and Kirill Andreevich Zatolokin) a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison and heavy fines.
Sanctions also ban individuals from entering Australia.
