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Earlier today, the DOJ announced it recovered most of the $4.4 million that Colonial Pipeline paid to the allegedly Russia-based hacker group who hacked Colonial Pipeline.Â
JUST IN: The DOJ has recovered most of the $4.4 million ransom that Colonial Pipeline paid to a Russia-based hacker group.https://t.co/Chdk8mxQ1b
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 7, 2021
The Justice Department has recovered most of the $4.4 million cryptocurrency ransom that Colonial Pipeline paid to the Russia-based DarkSide ransomware hacker group last month.
“Ransomware and digital extortion pose a national security and an economic security threat to the United States. The Department of Justice, with our partners, is committed to using all the tools at our disposal to disrupt these networks and the abuse of the online infrastructure that allows this threat to persist,†Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Monday. “The sophisticated use of technology to hold businesses and even whole cities hostage for profit is decidedly a 21st-century challenge — but the old adage ‘follow the money’ still applies. And that’s exactly what we do.â€
Monaco added: “After Colonial Pipeline’s quick notification to law enforcement and pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California earlier today, the Department of Justice has found and recaptured the majority of the ransom Colonial paid to the DarkSide network in the wake of last month’s ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks are always unacceptable, but when they target critical infrastructure, we will spare no effort in our response.â€
The cyberattack and ransomware effort by DarkSide last month forced Colonial Pipeline to halt its operations in an effort to deal with the incident. The pipeline, which begins in Texas and transports gasoline and jet fuel to the East Coast and the southeastern U.S., was responsible for delivering up to 45% of fuel for the East Coast. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency on May 9 related to the fuel disruption, and what was likely the largest cyberattack on U.S. infrastructure yet led to a nearly weeklong shutdown.
However, more questions have arisen.
Jorda Schachtel provided a lot more on the story:
I'm having a tough time believing that this supposedly Russian hacking network was so sophisticated it could shut down our infrastructure, but not knowledgable enough to maintain safe custody over their bitcoin.
We're missing the whole story, here….
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) June 7, 2021
Here's a perfect example of the confusion. Why do you need a court order if you have the password to their wallet? The reverse is also true. If the bitcoin was transferred to a custodial wallet, you dont need the password (keys). https://t.co/BnXqqrWnlX
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) June 7, 2021
More info from the warrant here. So it looks like I was right. The FBI did not obtain the private keys. Instead, they took legal action against an exchange or some kind of custodial wallet that has servers in N California (Coinbase, lol?). These "hackers" were grossly incompetent pic.twitter.com/27YN3FMJUM
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) June 7, 2021
This description by The New York Times cyber beat reporters is NOT what happened. To be clear, there was no hack. Feds did not do something innovative here. They used legal mechanisms and tracked a publicly available ledger to secure the bitcoin from this alleged hacking group. pic.twitter.com/exc6VqYZaS
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) June 7, 2021
FYI: If it is indeed a Coinbase wallet that the feds grabbed funds from, keep in mind that Coinbase does not provide services to Russian nationals.
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) June 7, 2021
More:
This is the headline you should be seeing in the corporate press about the Darkside ransomware attack.
The feds were able to recoup the ransom because these "sophisticated" hackers were storing their funds on servers that were based in the United States.https://t.co/sntIfXSocI
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) June 7, 2021
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