Department of Justice Seizes $2.3 Million in
Cryptocurrency Paid to the Ransomware
Extortionists Darkside
WASHINGTON - The Department of
Justice today announced that it has
seized 63.7 bitcoins currently valued at
approximately $2.3 million. These
funds allegedly represent the proceeds
of a May 8, ransom payment to
individuals in a group known as
DarkSide, which had targeted Colonial
Pipeline, resulting in critical
infrastructure being taken out of
operation. The seizure warrant was
authorized earlier today by the
Honorable Laurel Beeler, U.S.
Magistrate Judge for the Northern
District of California.
“Following the money remains one of
the most basic, yet powerful tools we
have,” said Deputy Attorney General
Lisa O. Monaco for the U.S.
Department of Justice. “Ransom
payments are the fuel that propels the
digital extortion engine, and today’s
announcement demonstrates that the
United States will use all available
tools to make these attacks more costly
and less profitable for criminal
enterprises. We will continue to target
the entire ransomware ecosystem to
disrupt and deter these attacks.
Today’s announcements also
demonstrate the value of early
notification to law enforcement; we
thank Colonial Pipeline for quickly
notifying the FBI when they learned
that they were targeted by DarkSide.”
“There is no place beyond the reach of
the FBI to conceal illicit funds that will
prevent us from imposing risk and
consequences upon malicious cyber
actors,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul
Abbate. “We will continue to use all of
our available resources and leverage
our domestic and international
partnerships to disrupt ransomware
attacks and protect our private sector
partners and the American public.”
“Cyber criminals are employing ever
more elaborate schemes to convert
technology into tools of digital
extortion,” said Acting U.S. Attorney
for the Northern District of California
Stephanie Hinds. “We need to continue
improving the cyber resiliency of our
critical infrastructure across the
nation, including in the Northern
District of California. We will also
continue developing advanced methods
to improve our ability to track and
recover digital ransom payments.”
On or about May 7, Colonial Pipeline
was the victim of a highly publicized
ransomware attack resulting in the
company taking portions of its
infrastructure out of operation.
Colonial Pipeline reported to the FBI
that its computer network was
accessed by an organization named
DarkSide and that it had received and
paid a ransom demand for
approximately 75 bitcoins.
As alleged in the supporting affidavit,
by reviewing the Bitcoin public ledger,
law enforcement was able to track
multiple transfers of bitcoin and
identify that approximately 63.7
bitcoins, representing the proceeds of
the victim’s ransom payment, had
been transferred to a specific address,
for which the FBI has the “private
key,” or the rough equivalent of a
password needed to access assets
accessible from the specific Bitcoin
address. This bitcoin represents
proceeds traceable to a computer
intrusion and property involved in
money laundering and may be seized
pursuant to criminal and civil
forfeiture statutes.
The Special Prosecutions Section and
Asset Forfeiture Unit of the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the Northern
District of California is handling the
seizure, with significant assistance
from the Department of Justice
Criminal Division’s Money Laundering
and Asset Recovery Section and
Computer Crime and Intellectual
Property Section, and the National
Security Division’s Counterintelligence
and Export Control Section. The
Department components who worked
on this seizure coordinated their
efforts through the Department’s
Ransomware and Digital Extortion
Task Force, which was created to
combat the growing number of
ransomware and digital extortion
attacks.
The Task Force prioritizes the
disruption, investigation, and
prosecution of ransomware and
digital extortion activity by tracking
and dismantling the development and
deployment of malware, identifying
the cybercriminals responsible, and
holding those individuals accountable
for their crimes. The Task Force also
strategically targets the ransomware
criminal ecosystem as a whole and
collaborates with domestic and foreign
government agencies as well as private
sector partners to combat this
significant criminal threat.
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