R&I – TxPAT ***
The government has recovered a “majority” of the millions of dollars paid in ransom to hackers behind the cyberattack that prompted last month’s shutdown of Colonial Pipeline, officials announced Monday.
“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,” Lisa Monaco, U.S. deputy attorney general, said during a press conference.
Monaco said the money has been recovered by the department’s recently launched Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force. The task force was created as part of the government’s response to an “epidemic” of ransomware attacks, which Monaco said have “increased in both scope and sophistication in the last year.” It is the task force’s first operation of this kind.
The ransom was paid in bitcoins by Colonial Pipeline on the same day it was demanded by DarkSide, a ransomware developer that leases its software for a fee or a share in the proceeds.
As of Monday, the government has successfully collected about 63.7 bitcoins out of 75 — approximately $4.4 million — that were paid by Colonial Pipeline, Reuters reported.
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Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2021/06/07/1004050873/u-s-retrieves-some-of-the-colonial-pipeline-ransom