The FBI's seizing one bitcoin wallet won't stop ransomware — but it's a

The FBI's surprise announcement Monday that it had seized some of the ransom that Colonial Pipeline paid to criminal hackers came as a double shock. On one hand, it was major news that the U. S. government had flexed its cybersecurity muscles on behalf of the owner and operator of the country's largest fuel pipeline, taking over a bitcoin account and marking the first public recovery of funds ever from a known ransomware gang. On the other hand, it raised a question: Why hadn't the U. S. done this before? Ransomware has been a pervasive and ongoing problem for years, but one that had resulted in little action from authorities. And while recovering some of the ransom marked a new front for the U. S., it also hints at the relatively limited options to deter hackers. Philip Reiner, the CEO of the Institute for Security and Technology, a San Francisco think tank that produced a seminal report on policies to fight ransomware, praised the FBI's move as important, but said it's hard to assume anything more than that."It remains to be seen how much the FBI can sustain this sort of action," Reiner said. "It's a big first step, but we need to see a lot more of it."The FBI recovered a significant amount of money — 63.7 bitcoins, worth around $2.3 million — but it's a tiny slice of how much money ransomware groups make. DarkSide, the hacker group that breached Colonial, has raked in more than $90 million since it became a public hacker group operational in the fall of 2020, according to analysis from Elliptic, a company that tracks cryptocurrency transactions. And DarkSide wasn't even one of the most prolific ransomware groups, said Brett Callow, an analyst at the cybersecurity company Emsisoft."While the seizing of the funds is a positive, I don't think it will act as a deterrent at all," Callow said in a text message. "For the criminals, it's a win some, lose some situation, and the amount they win means the occasional loss is a minor setback."JBS, one of the largest meat processing plants in the U. S., announced Wednesday that it had paid its ransomware hackers, REvil, $11 million even after it had restored most of its files. The company's reasoning, it said, was because it feared lingering IT issues and the possibility the hackers would leak files. The ransom recovery comes as ransomware — a topic that was big in the cybersecurity world and quietly widespread — has emerged as a national security issue, with President Joe Biden pledging action. The Colonial Pipeline hack, which led to some gas stations running out of fuel and brief fears of a substantial outage, was a turning point in the U. S. response to ransomware. It garnered national attention, and the Justice Department soon decided it would elevate ransomware to the same priority as terrorism cases. For cybersecurity experts, that attention was long overdue. Americans have been suffering ransomware attacks in practically all walks of life in recent years.


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Article Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/fbis-seizing-one-bitcoin-wallet-wont-stop-ransomware-start-rcna1166


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