A Florida cybersecurity company owner has been charged in an alleged $19 million fraud scheme in which prosecutors say he secretly paid ransomware hackers to recover clients’ data while falsely claiming his company used advanced technology to decrypt files. Federal court documents filed in Brooklyn identify Nassau and Suffolk counties among the locations where the alleged crimes occurred.
Zohar Pinhasi, 50, of Hollywood, Florida, who also used the names Zack Silver and Zack Green, was arraigned Wednesday, Oct. 7, in federal court in Brooklyn on wire fraud charges. He was indicted Sept. 23.
According to federal prosecutors, Pinhasi owned MonsterCloud LLC, a ransomware remediation company that offered to help businesses recover computer files locked by cybercriminals. The company promoted what it described as proprietary tools and advanced decryption technology that could restore encrypted data without paying the hackers responsible for the attacks…