Georgia Sygnia Incident Response Manager Sentenced 4 Years After Running BlackCat Ransomware Attacks

On April 30, 2026, Ryan Clifford Goldberg — a 40-year-old incident response manager at Sygnia, a prominent cybersecurity firm based in Watkinsville, Georgia — was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in December 2025 to one count of conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion under 18 U.S.C. § 1951 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Goldberg conspired with Kevin Tyler Martin, a ransomware threat negotiator at Chicago-based DigitalMint, and Angelo John Martino III, also a DigitalMint negotiator, to operate as affiliates of the ALPHV BlackCat ransomware-as-a-service operation between approximately April 2023 and December 2023. The three men paid BlackCat administrators a 20% share of ransoms collected in exchange for access to the group's encryptor and extortion platform, then used their professional cybersecurity expertise to breach five U.S. companies and issue demands totaling more than $16 million. Only one victim — a medical device company — paid, surrendering approximately $1.3 million in cryptocurrency. When a California doctor's office refused to pay, the conspirators published the practice's patient health data. The FBI Miami Field Office, with assistance from the U.S. Secret Service and international partners, led the investigation; agents tracked Goldberg across 10 countries before his apprehension. Among those whose data was leaked were patients of a small California medical practice who had never agreed to share their private health information with anyone outside their doctor's office. - - Disclaimer: This video is a dramatization based on real events. Some visual content was created with artificial intelligence assistance. Some details have been fictionalized and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.