Karen Serobovich Vardanyan could be imprisoned for up to five years.
The U.S. has filed conspiracy, computer-based fraud, and computer-based extortion charges against Armenian national Karen Serobovich Vardanyan over his role as the operator of the Ryuk ransomware gang.
Vardanyan, who has entered a not guilty plea to the charges after being extradited to the U.S. last month, could be imprisoned for up to five years, as well as ordered to pay $250,000 per charge following a week-long jury trial beginning late August, according to CyberScoop.
Hundreds of servers and workstations have been compromised with Ryuk ransomware by Vardanyan and co-conspirators Oleg Nikolayevich Lyulyava, Andrii Leonydovich Prykhodchenko, and Levon Georgiyovych Avetisyan from March 2019 to September 2020, from which they were able to amass over $15 million worth of ransom payments.
While Lyulyava and Prykhodchenko are yet to be found, Avetisyan is awaiting extradition to the U.S, officials said.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
