Collaborate Disseminate
“By operating vast server farms that sell virtual currency mining capacity internationally, these companies help Russia monetize its natural resources,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.
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The address received $600 million in Ethereum and other digital currency during the March attack, crypto-tracking company Chainalysis said.
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Virgil Griffith went to the DPRK to talk about crypto. The DOJ said he helped the country learn a new way to bypass sanctions and launder money. Continue reading Ethereum Programmer Jailed for North Korea Trip Wanted to Clone Dogs, Become ‘Crypto Hero’
According to crypto-tracking company Chainalysis, the markets probably couldn’t handle it without prices tanking.
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The list also includes Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh, the researcher indicted for creating the malware, which targets industrial control systems.
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Fear abounds that Russia will use cryptocurrency to skirt U.S. sanctions imposed in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
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As banks and other financial institutions work to honor the U.S. sanctions against Russia and monitor for efforts to evade them, the feds are warning that ransomware proceeds could be in the mix. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued guidance this week on the responsibility that private institutions have for detecting “sanctions evasion activity” and reporting it under the Bank Secrecy Act and other laws. The alert comes as federal lawmakers have expressed concern about the use of crypto to evade sanctions, and Bloomberg is reporting that the Biden administration is preparing an executive order on the topic this week. At least one big player in the cryptocurrency industry, the trading platform Coinbase, already has expressed a commitment to supporting sanctions from the U.S. and other nations looking to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Coinbase said it had blocked 25,000 accounts linked to Russian people […]
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The Biden administration on Thursday sanctioned Russian oligarchs and organizations for their role in spreading disinformation and supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, among them a news agency the Treasury Department says has ties to a Russian cyber-espionage and offensive unit. The sanctions targeted nine employees of InfoRos, a nominal news agency primarily run by the GRU, which controls the Russian military intelligence service and operates its own special forces units. According to the Treasury Department, the GRU’s 72nd Main Intelligence Information Center, a unit within Russia’s Information Operations Troops, functions as Russia’s “military force for conducting cyber espionage, influence, and offensive cyber operations” and is InfoRos’ operator. In a news release, the Treasury Department said InfoRos is a network of more than 1,000 websites which “spread false conspiracy narratives and disinformation promoted by GRU officials.” For example, in early December, 2021, Treasury officials said one Ukraine-based InfoRos […]
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The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned four current and former Ukrainian government officials for allegedly supporting Russian influence operations to destabilize Ukraine, including one who gathered information on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, a frequent target of Kremlin cyberattacks. Taras Kozak and Oleh Voloshyn — two active members of parliament — acted at the behest of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Treasury said, as did former Ukrainian officials Vladimir Sivkovich and Volodymyr Oliynyk. “In 2021, Oliynyk worked at the direction of the FSB to gather information about Ukrainian critical infrastructure,” the department explained. “As in previous Russian incursions into Ukraine, repeated cyber operations against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure are part of Russia’s hybrid tactics to threaten Ukraine.” Ukrainian officials are already in the midst of blaming Russia for cyberattacks last week on its government agencies. While Treasury delivered the sanctions one day after President Joe Biden predicted Russia would invade Ukraine, […]
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A US cryptocurrency expert has pleaded guilty to conspiring to assist North Korea in evading sanctions, and could now face years in prison.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog. Continue reading US cryptocurrency expert pleads guilty to helping North Korea evade sanctions