Six Russian hackers have been added to the European sanctions list for their cyber attacks. Among them are Michael Michaelovich Tsarev and Maxim Galochkin, leaders of major international cybercrime organizations. The sanctions were imposed at the initiative of the Netherlands. This is the first time that criminals have also been included on the sanctions list.

Tsarev and Galochkin are in the United States Criminally charged It has also been placed on sanctions lists by the United States and the United Kingdom British media previously. According to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, the two are responsible for serious cyberattacks that have caused a lot of damage in the European Union, such as bank hacking and ransomware attacks on the healthcare sector and housing associations.

Two others work in the Callisto group, which consists of Russian information officers trying to steal defense data in European Union countries and elsewhere. The other two cooperated in developing malware, according to the European Union, with the help of Russian intelligence.

The European assets of individuals and organizations on the sanctions list have been frozen. They are also no longer allowed to enter the European Union and Ukraine. In addition, European citizens and organizations are not allowed to send money to or transact with these people or groups. Whoever does this will be punished.

Therefore, the Public Prosecution Office hopes that the sanctions will force Dutch host companies to conduct appropriate investigations into their customers. Criminals regularly use servers located in the Netherlands, because there are many companies that provide storage space.

Adding people or groups to the European sanctions list is complicated, because there must also be evidence. This is not always easy with cyber attacks. If any of the people on the sanctions list contest the sanctions in an EU court, the EU must be able to prove that that person is actually responsible for the attacks and not someone else.

The European Union started its sanctions list for cyber attacks in 2019. There are now 14 hackers on it.