The FBI managed to gain access to the “private key” of a bitcoin wallet that the hacking group Darkside used to collect its ransom payments.
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The Department of Justice announced Monday that it had recovered a majority of the ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline to hackers who shut down its operations last month and caused massive fuel shortages and price hikes.
The DOJ said that it had recovered $2.3 million worth of bitcoin out of the $4.4 million ransom that Colonial had paid to Darkside, the group behind the hack.
How did the government pull it off?
The FBI had what was effectively the password to a bitcoin wallet that Darkside had sent the ransom money to, allowing the FBI to simply seize the funds, according to the DOJ.
‘Following the money’
Despite cybercriminals’ increasingly sophisticated use of technology to commit crimes, the DOJ said it used a time-tested approach to recover Colonial’s ransom payment.
“Following the money remains one of the most basic, yet powerful tools we have,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the DOJ’s press release.
