After a month-long operation, law enforcement officers from 10 countries, together with agents from Europol and Eurojust, compromised and took control of LockBit's primary platform and other crucial infrastructure belonging to the cybercriminal group's ransomware operation. The work of the international taskforce "Operation Cronos" significantly compromised the criminal group by the end of February 2024: more than 200 cryptocurrency accounts were frozen, 34 servers taken down, 14,000 rogue accounts closed, and two persons arrested.

LockBit emerged at the end of 2019 using the name "ABCD" ransomware. Over the past three years, this ransomware became the most frequently deployed ransomware variant worldwide. The criminal operation offered ‘ransomware-as-a-service’, with a core team creating its malware and running the website. It also licensed out its code to affiliates, who launch attacks causing billions of euros worth of damage.

By means of "Operation Cronos", law enforcement officials managed to develop decryption tools designed to recover files encrypted by the LockBit ransomware. These solutions are available for free in 37 languages on the ‘No More Ransom’ portal.