FBI Recover Ransom Paid To Pipeline Hackers
The US Justice Department (DoJ) has recovered most of the $4.4 million (£3.1m) ransom payment made to Russian hackers after a cyber attack that caused the operator of the nation's largest fuel pipeline to halt its operations. The DoJ say that the FBI had somehow obtained the secret key to the hackers Bitcoin wallet and this allowed US agents to unlock the wallet and transfer Bitcoins to a wallet that was controlled by the FBI.
The Justice Department did not provide details about how the FBI had obtained a key for the specific bitcoin address, but said law enforcement had been able to track multiple transfers of the crypto-currency. A San Francisco judge approved the recovery of funds of this "crypto-currency address," which was located somewhere in the Northern District of California.
The FBI has not explained how they got access and they will probably keep that secret, although this success may be related to the international law enforcement Operation Trojan Shield in which agencies in 18 countries seized over $148 million in currency, hundreds of illegal weapons, six tons of cocaine and five tons of marijuana. The FBI and other agencies set up and secretly ran the ANOM messaging app, which was designed to suit the needs of organised crime groups. They were then able to access more than 27 million messages sent through the app.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a press conference. "Today we turned the tables on DarkSide," a Russia-linked cyber crime group blamed in Colonial Pipeline attack. Monaco said that investigators had "recaptured" 63.7 bitcoins, now valued at about $2.3 million, following a drop in the value of crypto currency in recent weeks."
Joseph Blount, CEO of Colonial Pipeline, said his company had worked closely with the FBI from the beginning and was grateful for the "swift work and professionalism" of the agency. “I made the decision to pay, and I made the decision to keep the information about the payment as confidential as possible,” Blount said that he has “deeply sorry” for the effect of the shutdown but had to act fast as it worked to determine whether the criminal gang had compromised the operational systems or physical security of the 5,500-mile pipeline and to try to avoid a more sustained shutdown.
The Darkside attackers entered the company's networks on 29th April and they used a VPN account that no longer worked.
A Colonial control room employee discovered the attack on 7th May, after seeing a ransom note demanding crypto-currency. and started the process of shutting down the pipeline to contain the threat. The shutdown sparked panic in the south-eastern US, where residents were seen lining up at petrol pumps for several hours over fears of fuel shortage. Petrol prices rose as a result of fuel supply disturbance, and some stations ran out of fuel.
After it emerged that Colonial Pipeline had paid ransom to hackers, President Biden said that the government would take all necessary steps to disrupt hackers' operations. Cyber criminals have increasingly targeted organisations that operate critical infrastructure across many sectors of the US economy.
Cyber criminals demand ransom in the form of crytpo-currency because it enables direct online payments regardless of geographical location. In this case, the FBI was able to identify a virtual currency wallet used by the hackers and recovered the proceeds from there.
Dept. of Justice: Dept.of Justice: WorldPipelines: CNN: MBT:
Spectrum News: Computing: Image:Unsplash
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