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The U.S. Department of Justice says it has disrupted the operations of the global %Ransomware group known as %Hive which it accuses of trying to extort $130 million U.S. from businesses and individuals.

Hive extorted ransomware payments from hospitals, school districts, financial institutions, and individuals in more than 80 countries around the world, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Hive would distribute malware that encrypted and paralyzed computer systems while allowing the group to steal sensitive documents and information.

Hive would then demand ransom payments for both the data and a decryption key that would allow the paralyzed computers to resume regular operations.

Justice Department officials say they infiltrated the group in July 2022 and have been working to shutdown the group’s activities ever since.

The Department of Justice said it has delivered decryption keys to 300 organizations that were attacked by Hive, as well as 1,000 decryption keys to previous victims of the international group.

The U.S. government estimates that Hive targeted more than 1,500 victims worldwide since 2021.

The U.S. Justice Department continues to warn that %Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure remains a serious threat to the security of government departments and organizations in the private sector.

In 2021, a ransomware attack shutdown the Colonial Pipeline on the east coast of the U.S. for five days, leading to a shortage of natural gas that led to a spike in prices.