PANews reported on December 31 that, according to the U.S. Department of Justice website, Ryan Goldberg (40 years old) of Georgia and Kevin Martin (36 years old) of Texas pleaded guilty in the Southern District of Florida federal court to conspiring with others to use the ALPHAV BlackCat ransomware to attack multiple victims across the United States in 2023. Both men are from the cybersecurity industry and shared the spoils with the ransomware developers. One attack successfully extorted $1.2 million in Bitcoin. Sentencing is scheduled for March 12, 2026, and both face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.