A Florida man who was the subject of a 2019 investigation by ProPublica was indicted last month on federal charges that he defrauded clients of his ransomware data recovery firm.
When ProPublica published its story in 2019, ransomware was growing into one of the world’s most pervasive cyberthreats.
He called MonsterCloud’s data recovery methods a “trade secret.”
In its 2019 investigation, ProPublica interviewed MonsterCloud’s clients and ransomware experts and found that in certain cases the firm must have paid ransoms on behalf of clients.
In 2019, Pinhasi touted MonsterCloud’s ties to law enforcement as evidence of its integrity.