Two former cybersecurity professionals from the firms Sygnia and DigitalMint have admitted to conducting ransomware attacks against several American companies using the BlackCat platform. Ryan Clifford Goldberg and Kevin Tyler Martin pleaded guilty to extortion charges and face up to twenty years in prison when they are sentenced in early 2026.
The case has drawn significant attention because both men used their specialized professional training to execute the very crimes they were originally hired to prevent. Goldberg previously served as an incident response manager, while Martin worked as a professional ransomware negotiator, providing them with the high-level technical knowledge required to breach corporate networks. Between May and November 2023, the pair collaborated with an unnamed third accomplice to infiltrate various organizations, paying a portion of their illicit gains to the BlackCat group in exchange for use of their malicious software.
GET 50% Discount for VPN/ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE AT 911Cyber - CODE: bit5025
Court records indicate that the group targeted a diverse range of victims, including a pharmaceutical company, an engineering firm, and several medical organizations across the United States. While the defendants issued ransom demands ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, their most significant confirmed payout came from a medical device manufacturer in Florida. After encrypting the company’s servers, the attackers demanded ten million dollars but ultimately received a payment of approximately 1.27 million dollars.
The investigation into these individuals highlights a broader federal effort to dismantle the BlackCat ransomware ecosystem. Before being disrupted by law enforcement, the BlackCat operation was responsible for extorting at least 300 million dollars from over one thousand victims globally. The FBI eventually managed to breach the group’s infrastructure, allowing them to monitor criminal activities and develop a decryption tool to help victims recover their data without paying ransoms.
Federal authorities emphasized that the betrayal of professional trust in this case made the crimes particularly egregious. Government officials noted that internet-based extortion causes significant harm to innocent citizens and that the defendants’ backgrounds in cybersecurity made them uniquely dangerous. The successful prosecution of these insiders serves as a warning about the evolving threats posed by individuals with sophisticated technical expertise who choose to pivot from defense to cybercrime.
Source: US Cybersecurity Experts Plead Guilty To Blackcat Ransomware Attacks