PANews reported on February 12 that according to Chainalysis, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the UK's Department of Foreign Development (FCDO) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) jointly sanctioned Russia's Bulletproof Hosting (BPH) service provider Zservers on February 11, accusing it of providing critical infrastructure support to the ransomware gang LockBit.

Zservers is considered a key link in the Russian cybercrime supply chain, providing anonymous hosting services to cybercriminals to support ransomware attacks, including those against hospitals in the UK. The sanctions also cover two Russian citizens (Aleksandr Bolshakov and Alexander Mishin), four employees of Zservers and its UK shell company XHOST Internet Solutions LP.

On-chain data shows that Zservers has financial transactions with multiple ransomware gangs, involving at least $5.2 million in crypto transactions, some of which flowed to OFAC-sanctioned trading platform Garantex and KYC-free exchanges.