The US managed to get back the $ 5 million ransom they paid to the DarkSide team for the Colonial Pipeline ransomware
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On May 7, Colonial Pipeline, a company responsible for fuel supplies to the US East Coast, was hit by a ransomware attack by the DarkSide group. They were forced to shut down the fuel supply pipeline, causing panic in the US East Coast market over a possible shortage of fossil fuels.
Due to the criticality of the situation, the Biden administration paid $5 million to the DarkSide ransomware group as a ransom to obtain the decryption key and quickly bring their systems back online. After Colonial Pipelife's systems were restored, US agencies launched a witch hunt against the DarkSide group, forcing the latter to shut down its website.
It appears that the hunt has paid off, as the U.S. Department of Justice announced today that it has seized a digital wallet used by DarkSide that contained part of the Colonial Pipeline ransom. Specifically, an FBI agent filed a report in a California court claiming that they obtained a private key to a digital wallet belonging to the DarkSide group that contained 63,7 Bitcoins.
Do not look at 63,7 Bitcoins. At $ 32.850 per bitcoin today, that equates to about $ 2.100.000. And the price of the cryptocurrency has fallen in the international market in relation to the date of payment of the ransom.
It is not clear how the FBI gained access to DarkSide's wallet, but on May 14, the ransomware gang claimed to have lost access to one of its servers.
This is the first time (at least officially) that the US government has stated that it has recovered part of the ransom it has paid. It is interesting to see the tightness of the underground routes, as well as the bitcoin system, in the war between the USA and DarkSide. Can anyone who knows the way and can, be hidden from the government of a large country?
Dimitris hates Mondays...
