The US Department of Justice managed to recover most of the bitcoins that the operator of the largest US fuel pipeline system, Colonial Pipeline, paid to hackers to decrypt the files.
In mid-May, Colonial Pipeline paid the DarkSide hacker group $ 5 million in BTC to decrypt the files. After that, the American authorities, who suddenly realized that even the critical infrastructure of the country was susceptible to hacker attacks, unleashed the full power of their system on DarkSide. As a result, the servers of the hacker group were shut down, and the group itself announced the termination of its activities.
Most of the ransom was returned by US law enforcement. According to Lisa Monaco, Deputy Attorney General of the United States, the authorities managed to recover 63.7 BTC. Now they cost $ 2.26 million, but at the time of the ransom payment, 75 BTC was worth $ 5 million. That is, the US authorities managed to return most of the bitcoins.
“The Colonial Pipeline quickly notified law enforcement, the court issued an order and the Justice Department returned most of the bitcoins Colonial paid to DarkSide hackers in the attack,” Monaco said.
The FBI has tracked the movements of bitcoins paid by the Colonial Pipeline. Of these funds, 63.7 BTC were transferred to one specific address and the FBI agents managed to obtain the private keys from this wallet. How exactly they managed to do this is not reported. Lisa Monaco called on American companies to audit their infrastructures and close possible attack vectors.
Ransomware hackers are becoming more dangerous and sophisticated, and ransomware in cryptocurrencies they receive from victims for decrypting files is on the rise, according to analyst firm Chainalisys.
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