DOJ seizes $2.3 million in cryptocurrency payments from Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack
The Justice Department announced Monday that it had retrieved $2.3 million in cryptocurrency payments Colonial Pipeline made in the DarkSide ransomware attack. In May, Colonial — which delivers an estimated 45% of fuel consumed on the East Coast — paid its attackers $4.4 million worth of cryptocurrency in an incident that propelled ransomware into visibility it didn’t previously have in the U.S. On Monday, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the department got some of that payment back, DOJ officials said at a news conference. “The sophisticated use of technology to hold businesses and even whole cities hostage for profit is a decidedly 21st century challenge — but the old adage ‘follow the money’ still applies,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. “Today we turned the tables on DarkSide.” It’s not the first time DOJ has seized cryptocurrency […]
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