The US succeeded and got back part of the $5 million ransom they had paid to the team DarkSide for the Colonial Pipeline ransomware
On May 7, the company Colonial Pipeline, which was responsible for refueling the east coast of America, was attacked by ransomware by the DarkSide team. They were forced to shut down the fuel pipeline, leaving the US East Coast market cause panic from possible shortage of fossil fuels.
Due to the criticality of the situation The Biden government paid $ 5 million to ransomware group DarkSide, as a ransom, to obtain the decryption key and quickly restore their systems to the internet. After the restoration of Colonial Pipelife systems, the US services started a witch hunt against the DarkSide group, as a result of which the latter was forced to close its website.
It appears that hunt has borne some fruit, as the US Department of Justice announced today that it has seized a digital wallet which was used by DarkSide and which contained part of the Colonial Pipeline ransom. Specifically, An FBI agent filed a lawsuit in a California court, claiming to have acquired a private key to a DarkSide digital wallet containing 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 government of the US states 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 US and the DarkSide. Can someone who knows how and can, stay hidden from the government of a great country?
