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RAMP ransomware forum goes dark in probable FBI sting | Computer Weekly

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RAMP ransomware forum goes dark in probable FBI sting | Computer Weekly


The Russian-speaking RAMP cyber crime forum – one of the most significant players in the underground cyber criminal ecosystem – has gone dark following what appears to be major action by the US authorities.

Although at the time of writing, no official announcement has been made by the Americans, within the past 24 hours both RAMP’s dark and public web sites have been replaced with seizure notices stating the action was taken under the auspices of the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and the Department of Justice’s (DoJ’s) Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.

It is not unheard of for cyber criminals to fake takedowns, often amid juvenile theatrics, to start over with a ‘clean’ slate, but initial reports appear to verify the authenticity of the takedown, with DNS records showing RAMP’s web domains now point to FBI infrastructure.

The alleged operator of RAMP, a hacker going by the handle Stallman, who according to Recorded Future took over its operations about four years ago, also stated the forum was no more.

In a post on the XSS hacking forum, translated from the original Russian, Stallman said the takedown had “destroyed years of my work”.

“Although I hoped that this day would never come, deep down I always understood that it was possible. This is the risk we all take,” they wrote.

Set up around 2021, RAMP operated as both a discussion forum and an underground marketplace, with ransomware kits, malware, alongside a library of ransomware guides and tutorials for newbies.

Access to the forum was tightly restricted, with minimum activity levels required and access and registration fees payable, but at its height it still boasted several thousand members, according to a summer 2024 analysis by Rapid7, which described the RAMP community as a “critical resource” for threat actors. At the time, it supposedly had revenues of about $250,000.

Limited long-term impact

Daniel Wilcock, threat intelligence analyst at Talion, described the takedown as a big win for the good guys. However, he said, RAMP’s denizens are likely to turn to alternatives, so the long-term impact on the wider criminal ecosystem will be limited.

“But all is not lost,” he said. “While this doesn’t signal the end of ransomware, law enforcement will be able to gain valuable information from the seizure around the threat actors using the services, such as their emails and IP addresses plus access to the financial transactions that took place on the market.

“This could support further law enforcement action against the threat actors that used the site, but given that RAMP was heavily used by Russian criminals it’s highly unlikely we will see many actual arrests.” 

A blow to Russian intel?

Writing on LinkedIn, Yelisey Bohuslavskiy, a partner at threat intel specialist RedSense, laid out more of RAMP’s backstory and some of the more nuanced lore surrounding the forum.

He said it was an open secret that RAMP had close ties to individuals closely affiliated with the Russian security services and was set up as part of a response to the rapid growth of the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model in 2020 and 2021.

This was a period during which rapid diversification and the emergence of new ransomware affiliates made it harder for the Russians to keep tabs on what was going on, compared to in the years immediately prior when the scene was dominated by organised big name gangs like Conti, ReVIL and so on.

Bohuslavskiy said this strategy had paid off in spades because RAMP incentivised these new affiliates and small-time cyber crooks to make themselves visible to the authorities.

He said that in the short-term, the takedown would indeed prove highly disruptive to the ransomware market as lower-level actors would lose both access and publicity, while the access brokers and vendors of loaders and other hacking tools who also frequent RAMP would also see their cashflow disrupted. For the remaining big name gangs, however, not much would change.

But, added Bohuslavskiy: “Russian security services… will lose some visibility into ransomware processes and sellers.”

He also predicted that Stallman – whoever they may be – will probably be arrested soon as they are now a wasted asset.



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Top Newegg Promo Codes and Coupons for March 2026

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4 hours ago

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March 20, 2026

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Top Newegg Promo Codes and Coupons for March 2026


Listen up, nerds. Newegg currently has promo codes and deals on gently used, refurbished, new and hard-to-find electronics, gaming products and more. Remaining one of the biggest online-only retailers in the US for the last 20 years, Newegg is a leading global online retailer for PC hardware, home appliances and all things tech, as well as providing help with businesses’ e-commerce needs. In the last decade, Newegg has expanded its online retail presence, selling everything from PC parts to refurbished vacuum cleaners. So, whether you’re wanting to build your own PC or just looking to upgrade your laptop, Newegg has something for every type of tech lover. Plus, WIRED has found several Newegg discount codes (and other deals) for new and existing customers. Don’t wait too long—save big money on those big (and small) tech purchases in 2026.

Get the Latest Newegg Deals in 2026

Newegg is continuously adding deals, so be sure to check back often for serious discounts on unmissable tech. Some of the best deals we’ve been eyeing include Gigabyte B650M Gaming Plus Wi-Fi gaming motherboard for $110 ($20 off), Xbox 3-month game pass ultimate cards for $96 ($24 off), and ASRock Challenger Radeon graphics card for $600 ($50 off).

One of the best ways to save big on fun tech purchases on Newegg is through Newegg combo deals. If you’re looking to build your own PC, when you buy the components to it on Newegg, you’ll save big. When you choose items from two or more categories, you’ll unlock combo savings, like processor, motherboard, and memory cards. Plus there’s AMD combo savings and Intel combo savings, with up to $15 off Intel processors.

Save 3% With Exclusive Newegg Promo Codes, Only at WIRED

We at WIRED know that one of the best ways to save on essential (often price) tech is buying through a trusted retailer like Newegg, and that’s why we have a WIRED-exclusive promo code, valid only on newegg.com only—not in Canada or Newegg Business. PCs can break or make your online experience, especially when it comes to gaming, so that’s why Newegg is offering 3% off gaming notebooks with our exclusive promo code only at WIRED. Even better, this deal is stackable, meaning it can be added on top of any other applicable coupon (but the max discount amount per order is $150).

How to Redeem a Newegg Coupon

If you qualify, the best current Newegg promo code to save coins is their education discount, which gets you 8 to 10% off (up to $100) an entire order. Use this Newegg discount code, which will help you save once you have verified your status. Copy the code using the handy pop-up button below the coupon, and once you’ve found the must-have item, apply the Newegg edu promo code during checkout to get the discount. The coupon is available to students, faculty, and education staff with a valid .edu email address.

Enjoy Exclusive Discounts and Benefits With a Newegg+ Membership

Newegg has a free membership program that gives you access to exclusive deals. To get a Newegg+ account, you’ll need to register, or if you already have an account, opt in to the program. Once it’s on your dash, you’ll get perks like free shipping, exclusive early access and offers, member-only discount codes, extended warranties, easier returns, dedicated customer service, and more.

Members are also eligible to view and enter Newegg Shuffle events, which give customers a chance to purchase limited offers at great deals. During these events, there are 3 phases: product selection, winner notification, and purchase. There are no advanced sign-ups allowed, meaning you’ll have to keep an eye on the website (or app) if you want to participate in the next shuffle.

Get the Latest Newegg Student Offers

You need a lot of tech as a student, which can get very expensive. Newegg wants to make those purchases a little less painful by offering student and faculty discounts and pricing for 5% discounts and more. Along with student pricing and discounts, there’s also special financing available to help offset initial expenses that may be a financial barrier to getting this necessary tech. This Newegg discount is available to anyone with a .edu email account. All you need to do is use your .edu email and click the ‘Student Discount Available’ button on eligible products.

Stay Tuned for Newegg Coupons and Flash Discounts

Even if the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are only available in November, you can still save a significant amount on your order using special Newegg promo codes and their 24-hour flash deals. Newegg Shell Shocker coupons include steep discounts on everything from PC components to gaming gear and hard-to-find tech gadgets. Check out our favorite Newegg discounts to get up to 80% off. The best thing is, early shoppers have Newegg’s Price Protection, so if the price drops after you buy, you get a refund. Gear up now to make sure you score big on your favorite electronics this holiday season. Make sure you sign up for the Newegg newsletter to get special offers, coupon codes, and exclusive promotions.

Other Ways to Save at Newegg Without a Promotional Code

Along with the education promo code for students to save 8% to 10%, Newegg also has a rewards program called EggPoints where members earn points for qualifying purchases. For every 100 EggPoints spent, you get $1 to spend at Newegg.com. Newegg also has Shell Shocker deals, which change every day and feature limited-time, deeply discounted sales on specific products, from gaming laptops to graphic cards, processors and other components. So, be sure to check back often to not miss a product you’ve been eyeing going on clearance.

Save up to $300 Combo Savings When you Build Your Dream Setup With Newegg PC Builder

Ready to level up your WFH or GFH (gaming from home) set up? Newegg PC Builder can guide you through the process of installing your perfect custom setup—whether you’re crafting a powerhouse Newegg gaming PC or a budget-friendly workstation. Choose your components, check for compatibility, and let Newegg do the heavy lifting with versatile assembly and shipping options. And make sure to check if there is a Newegg Coupon available to save even more.

Don’t Miss These Newegg Sales and Seasonal Coupons

Like I said before, be sure to check Newegg ​​often for their seasonal sales throughout 2026, like the ultimate-capitalism-extravaganza that is Black Friday (and now, Cyber Monday, too), where Newegg has major discounts on a wide range of electronics for the few days leading up to Black Friday (through Cyber Week). Along with these peak holiday sales, they also have their own sales, like their Anniversary sale and FantasTech sale, which is essentially their version of Amazon Prime Day, where thousands of deals run for several days. It’s a good bet that if you check Newegg around Back to School time and during Memorial and Labor Day, there will be tons of end-of-season sales, too. After Christmas, they usually clear out a substantial amount of inventory with huge discounts on computer-related products like monitors and hard drives.

Snag one of our Newegg promo codes above to save on your next tech purchase, some of which can be used on already discounted items.



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US Takes Down Botnets Used in Record-Breaking Cyberattacks

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9 hours ago

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March 20, 2026

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US Takes Down Botnets Used in Record-Breaking Cyberattacks


The collection of millions of hacked computers known as Aisuru and Kimwolf have been used to launch some of the biggest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks ever seen. Now United States law enforcement agencies have wiped both of them off the internet along with two of the other hordes of hijacked computers—known as botnets—in a single broad takedown.

On Thursday, the US Department of Justice, working with the cybercrime-fighting agency within the US Department of Defense known as the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, announced that it had dismantled four massive botnets in a single operation, removing the command-and-control servers used to commandeer the hacker-run armies of compromised devices known by the names JackSkid, Mossad, Aisuru, and Kimwolf. Together, operators of the four botnets had amassed more than 3 million devices, the Justice Department said, and often sold access to those devices to other criminal hackers as well as using them to target victims with overwhelming floods of attack traffic to knock websites and internet services offline.

Aisuru and Kimwolf, a distinct but Aisuru-related botnet, had together comprised more than a million devices, according to DDoS defense firm Cloudflare, with Aisuru infecting a variety of devices ranging from DVRs to network appliances to webcams, and its Kimwolf offshoot infecting Android devices including smart TVs and set-top boxes. Cloudflare says the two botnets, working in conjunction, carried out a cyberattack against a Cloudflare customer last November that reached more than 30 terabits of data per second, nearly three times the size of the previous biggest such attack.

No arrests were immediately announced along with the takedowns, but a Justice Department statement noted that the US government was collaborating with Canadian and German authorities, “which targeted individuals who operated these botnets.”

“The United States is steadfast in our commitment to safeguarding critical internet infrastructure and fighting the cybercriminals who jeopardize its security, wherever they might live,” US attorney Michael J. Heyman wrote in a statement.

Of the four botnets taken out in the operation, Aisuru had gained the most notoriety, thanks to a series of record-breaking or near-record cyberattacks it carried out last fall. The botnet, whose use was rented out like many such “booter” services offering their brute-force disruptive capabilities to anyone willing to pay, has been most visibly against gaming services like Minecraft and independent cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs. Krebs, who has extensively investigated the botnet underground and Aisuru in particular, came under repeated attack from the botnet last year.

Then in November, Cloudflare absorbed a recording-breaking combined attack from Aisuru and Kimwolf that lasted only 35 seconds but reached 31.4 terabits per second, a volume of attack traffic close to triple the size of any seen before. (The company hasn’t revealed which of its customers was hit with that attack.)

In a report on the state of the DDoS ecosystem, Cloudflare described the maximum attack traffic of the combined Aisuru and Kimwolf botnets as equivalent to “the combined populations of the UK, Germany, and Spain all simultaneously typing a website address and then hitting ‘enter’ at the same second.” The botnet was capable, Cloudflare’s analysts wrote, of “launching DDoS attacks that can cripple critical infrastructure, crash most legacy cloud-based DDoS protection solutions, and even disrupt the connectivity of entire nations.”

In fact, all four botnets disrupted by the US operation were variants of Mirai, an internet-of-things botnet that first appeared in 2016, broke records at the time for the size of the cyberattacks it enabled, and eventually was used in an attack on the domain-name service provider Dyn that took down 175,000 websites simultaneously for much of the United States. Mirai’s code base has since served as the starting point for a decade of other internet-of-things botnets.



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‘Uncanny Valley’: Nvidia’s ‘Super Bowl of AI,’ Tesla Disappoints, and Meta’s VR Metaverse ‘Shutdown’

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11 hours ago

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March 19, 2026

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‘Uncanny Valley’: Nvidia’s ‘Super Bowl of AI,’ Tesla Disappoints, and Meta’s VR Metaverse ‘Shutdown’


This week on Uncanny Valley, hosts Brian Barrett and Zoë Schiffer discuss the highlights from Nvidia’s annual developer conference, and why Tesla recently got in trouble with some of its most loyal fans online. Plus, Meta’s initial decision to shut down Horizon Worlds VR on the Quest headset signals the end of the metaverse dream. (Meta has since reversed course, saying it will keep the platform on limited support for the “foreseeable future.”)

Articles mentioned in this episode:

You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett and Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer. Write to us at [email protected].

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “uncanny valley.” We’re on Spotify too.

Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Zoë Schiffer: Brian, hello. Very exciting to have another way to talk to you when I’m not pinging you on Slack every five seconds.

Brian Barrett: It’s great, because Slack doesn’t have the voice part.

Zoë Schiffer: It doesn’t.

Brian Barrett: I will say: very sad that Leah won’t be a part of that journey today.

Zoë Schiffer: I know. It is really sad, but when the Leah’s away, the mice will play, and we will be talking about topics that Leah hates, so just wait.

Brian Barrett: And to be clear, she’ll be back next week. She’s just sick.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.

Brian Barrett: It’s allergy season.

Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED’s Uncanny Valley. I’m Zoë Schiffer, WIRED’s director of business and industry.

Brian Barrett: I’m Brian Barrett, executive editor.

Zoë Schiffer: This week on the show, we’re diving into Nvidia’s annual developer conference, why some Tesla influencers are fleeing the brand, and why Meta has finally shut down Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest. So to start us off, this week, Nvidia had its annual developer conference in San Jose. This is the big event in the AI industry. Some people even call it the Super Bowl of AI. Developers go, CEOs, researchers, WIRED reporters—and we’re all waiting to hear what CEO Jensen Huang is going to tell us about the future of the company.

Brian Barrett: One thing that’s interesting about the Nvidia conference too, is I feel like so much of it is business facing. It’s not a lot of stuff that you, as an AI consumer or someone who plays around with Claude, wouldn’t necessarily connect with. One thing, with a grain of salt, because this is someone who stands to make this money, but Jensen did say the revenue opportunity for artificial intelligence chips just at Nvidia might reach at least a trillion dollars through 2027.

Zoë Schiffer: Pocket change.

Brian Barrett: Pocket change, I mean, really, for Nvidia at this point. One thing that was really interesting: He introduced a new product. I always like when there’s an actual product tied to this rather than the promise of a product. A while ago, Nvidia struck a licensing deal with a company called Groq, not to be confused with the occasionally—



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