WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has recovered most of a multimillion-dollar ransom payment made to hackers after a cyberattack that caused the operator of the nation’s largest …
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has recovered most of a multimillion-dollar ransom payment made to hackers after a cyberattack that caused the operator of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline to halt its operations last month, officials said Monday. The operation to recover the cryptocurrency from the Russia-based hacker group is the first undertaken by a specialized ransomware task force created by the Biden administration Justice Department, and reflects a rare victory as U.S. officials scramble to confront a rapidly accelerating ransomware threat that has targeted critical industries around the world. “By going after the entire ecosystem that fuels ransomware and digital currency, we will continue to use all of our tools and all of our resources to increase the costs and the consequences of ransomware attacks and other cyber-enabled attacks,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a news conference announcing the operation. Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline, which supplies roughly half the fuel consumed on the East Coast, temporarily shut down its operations on May 7 after a gang of cybercriminals using the DarkSide ransomware variant broke into its computer system. The ransomware variant used by DarkSide, which has been the subject of an FBI investigation for the last year, is one of more than 100 that law enforcement officials have identified, said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. Colonial officials have said they took their pipeline system offline before the attack could spread to its operating systems, and decided soon after to pay ransom of 75 bitcoin — then valued at roughly $4.
