Australia imposes sanctions on Russian cyber firms over ransomware attacks
Moderated by Tomas Kauer 
Australia and other Western nations today slapped sanctions on two Russian cybercrime service providers accused of allowing criminals to carry out cyberattacks.
Media Land LLC and its sister company ML Cloud, and two senior staff Aleksandr Alexandrovich Volosovik and Kirill Andreevich Zatolokin, have been sanctioned by Australia, the US and Britain.
The federal government has accused the organisations of helping supply ransomware infrastructure to malicious cyber actors and cybercriminals.
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Defence Minister Richard Marles said Media Land had enabled criminals to conduct attacks against Australian financial institutions, businesses, their customers and critical international infrastructure.
"These sanctions don't just impose costs on criminals, they dismantle the infrastructure that enables cybercrime.
"By disrupting these networks, we make it harder for others to launch attacks and it strengthens Australia's resilience against future threats."
The sanctions announced today make it a criminal offence to provide assets to either Media Land entity or the two sanctioned individuals, or to use or deal with their assets.
Breaching the measures can lead to penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment and/or heavy fines. The sanctions also ban the individuals from entering Australia.
The federal government says Australian individuals and businesses lose lose billions of dollars to cyber scams every year.
To report a cybercrime, call the Australian Signals Directorate on 1300 CYBER1 (1300 292 371) or make an online report.
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