United States law enforcement officials stated on Monday that they managed to recover $2.3 million in Bitcoin, that were previously paid to the cyber group that headed the gruesome ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, CNBC informed.
Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, said that they have “turned the tables on the cybergroup DarkSide”, adding that they used a court order in order to seize the money.
Paul Abbate, FBI Deputy Director also said that the agents managed to spot a wallet for virtual currency used by the hackers from DarkSide for collecting the sum paid for the Colonial Pipeline.
Abbate said that law enforcement have seized the funds from this wallet, stopping DarkSide from collecting them.
However, the Bureau did not want give details on how it accessed the wallet, saying that they also need to protect the tradecraft.
Elvis Chan, the assistant special agent in charge, said for the journalists that cyber criminals such as DarkSide tend to use US infrastructure while committing a crime. Once they’ve done this it opens a legal channel for FBI to recover the funds.
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