NetWalker Ransomware Operator Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison
Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins, a Canadian citizen and former affiliate of the NetWalker ransomware program, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his crimes. Vachon-Desjardins was arrested in January 2021 during a large-scale law enforcement operation to dismantle NetWalker. This malware was one of the most active threats of 2020, affecting at least 305 victims in 27 countries, including 203 in the United States.
During the operation, Bulgarian police seized a server hosting NetWalker operators’ darknet portals, while authorities charged Vachon-Desjardins, who had “earned” at least $27.6 million by infecting various company networks with the ransomware.
According to court documents released this week, Vachon-Desjardins “quickly pleaded guilty” and cooperated with the investigation, sparing authorities a lengthy and complex case. It was revealed that as a NetWalker “affiliate,” he not only hacked into company networks and infected them with ransomware, but also trained other criminals on how to carry out attacks.
The judge stated that from May 2020 to January 2021, Vachon-Desjardins hacked companies worldwide and “earned” over 2,000 bitcoins. The hacker personally received about 1,200 bitcoins, with the rest going to the NetWalker developers.
When Canadian law enforcement searched his home, they seized 720 bitcoins and “bags of cash containing between 100,000 and 150,000 Canadian dollars,” which were proceeds from laundering cryptocurrency. In total, authorities confiscated 640,040 Canadian dollars in cash and another 420,941 Canadian dollars from the hacker’s bank accounts. Authorities estimated that the suspect “earned” over 30 million Canadian dollars from ransomware attacks.
In addition to the money, investigators found more than 20 TB of data on Vachon-Desjardins’ devices, stolen from hacked organizations before deploying the ransomware. The judge noted that if printed, this data could fill a hockey arena.
Although Vachon-Desjardins attacked companies and organizations worldwide, he was charged in Canada, where he infected 17 victims and caused at least 2.8 million Canadian dollars in damages (he was already under investigation in his home country for drug trafficking). The court ordered him to compensate eight companies for their losses:
- Cegep St. Felicien – $999,239
- Elite Group (Continental Casualty Company) – $725,963
- Endoceutics Inc. – $72,503
- Enterprise Robert Thibert Inc. – $289,472
- Travelers Ins. Co. of Canada – $417,449
- Robson Carpenter LLP – $2,500
- Ville de Montmagny – $206,737
- Windward Software Systems Inc. – $91,966
Just a week before his sentencing for extortion, Vachon-Desjardins was also sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for drug trafficking. For his involvement in NetWalker’s ransomware operations, he received an additional 6 years and 8 months in prison.