The US government has now recovered millions in ransom money that was paid to eastern European hackers in order to free the Colonial Pipeline from a ransomware attack.
As CBS News reports:
Washington — The federal government has recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency paid in ransom to cybercriminals whose attack prompted the shutdown of the country’s largest fuel pipeline and gas shortages across the southeastern U.S. last month, the Department of Justice announced Monday.
On May 8, Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom worth roughly $4.3 million in bitcoin to the Russia-based hacking group known as DarkSide, which had used malicious software to hold the company hostage. Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount told The Wall Street Journal that the company paid the pricey ransom because the company feared a prolonged shutdown and did not know how long it would take to restore operations.
The ransom allowed Colonial to restore fuel transport through its pipeline, which stretches from Texas to the Northeast and delivers 45% of all fuel consumed on the East Coast.
Justice Department officials said the FBI was able to track and recover 63.7 bitcoins, currently valued at about $2.3 million. The operation marks a rare ransom recovery for the critical infrastructure company that fell victim to the devastating cyberattack, as the “ransomware-as-a-service” business model booms. It marks the first recovery by the department’s new Ransomware Task Force.
Numerous public and private entities have now found themselves the target of crippling ransomware attacks, which many believe may be being coordinated by a foreign actor like Russia or China.
There were ‘practice runs’ of a pandemic done just weeks before Covid-19 hit, and there were also ‘practice runs’ of a major cyber attack weeks before the attack on our pipeline. Coincidence? I think not. Bill Gates was leading both exercises and he is a proponent of population reduction.
I’m sure that retard joe was involved
The US government certainly has enough cyber talent to determine exactly who did the attack on the pipeline company. 1) Why hasn’t ALL the ransom been returned?, 2) Why hasn’t the soverign country been identified and punished? Get off your dead ass Biden. Get to work and do you job – you Democrat cretin! The Democrat Party is simply “no damn good”!