Australia has used cyber sanctions on a Russian hacker

The Australian Government has imposed a targeted financial sanction and a travel ban on Aleksandr Ermakov.

According to the Australian government, he was involved in the breach of the Medibank Private network (Medibank is a health company providing private health insurance and health services to more than 3.9 million people in Australia).

In the attack, 9.7 million records were stolen. These records included names, dates of birth, Medicare numbers, and sensitive medical information. Some records were published on the dark web.

This sanction makes it a criminal offence, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and heavy fines, to provide assets to Aleksandr Ermakov (also known as GustaveDore; aiiis_ermak, blade_runner, JimJones) or to use or deal with his assets, including through cryptocurrency wallets or ransomware payments.

“We continue to work with our friends and partners around the world to ensure cyber criminals are held to account for their actions and we will relentlessly pursue activities which disrupt their capability to target Australians in the cyber space.”

Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Richard Marles MP