ACCORDING to State Department and OFAC, the US government this week imposed sanctions on seven individuals and entities involved in acquiring and distributing cyber exploits harmful to national security.
The designated owner of Russian exploit broker Operation Zero (Matrix LLC) and Special Technology Services LLC FZ (STS) is Sergey Sergeyevich Zelenyuk, who also founded STS in the UAE to bypass sanctions and work with entities in Asia and the Middle East; Zelenyuk is described as the director and sole owner of Operation Zero.
Between 2022 and 2025, Operation Zero allegedly acquired eight zero-day exploits stolen by Peter Williams from his employer, likely Trenchant, a division of L3Harris; Williams, an Australian, was sentenced to 87 months in prison in the US. The group reportedly paid $1.3 million in cryptocurrency for the tools and sold them to customers in non-NATO countries, where they were used in ransomware and other attacks, with ambitions to sell to foreign intelligence agencies and develop spyware.
OFAC also sanctioned Williams’s associates and others linked to Operation Zero, including Marina Evgenyevna Vasanovich, Oleg Vyacheslavovich Kucherov, Azizjon Makhmudovich Mamashoyev, and Advance Security Solutions.