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DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

justice.gov

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Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#141

Post by dragonwriter »

vmception wrote: post #32
koheripbal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The warrant does not imply that the coins were on an exchange. The warrant only indicates that they needed legal authority to seize coins, wherever they are. It seem more likely that the FBI/NSA had and gained some access to the gang's infrastructure and seized the money. Transmitting ransom money to an exchange without any type of tumbler or atomic swapping, that it's not a realistic scenario. Maybe they tried to us…

The warrant is for a location in Northern California and they needed a warrant to get it. Use your head man, this means they literally went to a Federal Judge and said "hey we have probable cause that this address is on Coinbase" and the Judge was like "wow that is pretty probable" and then they took the warrant to Coinbase who was like "oh damn that's legit ..... can we squirm out of dealing with this .... no ... oh…

> The warrant is for a location in Northern California

No, its not.

Its for a particular Bitcoin address for which the FBI had the primary key. The FBI can’t legally seize coins just because it has a private key any more than it can seize physical property because it has a key to a house. It needs a warrant to use the key, which will only be issued with probable cause that the material is subject to seizure.

> Use your head man, this means they literally went to a Federal Judge and said "hey we have probable cause that this address is on Coinbase"

They literally did not; the warrant and supporting affidavit are public (with some redactions), and that is not, even remotely, what they say.

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#142

Post by duxup »

russian-hacker wrote: post #106
shiado wrote: post #24

This story makes absolutely no sense at all. The errors present by these hackers are so comical it's simply unbelievable. I'm supposed to believe some elite Russian hacking group keeps their crypto wallets running on a US host where the FBI just logs right in and snatches the private key? I'm starting to entertain the conspiracies that the future of commodities price manipulation is fake ransomware attacks. There nee…

Exactly. Until DOJ provides proof, this is pure FUD. Anyone competent enough to extort a foreign company out of millions is not going to attempt to cash out through an exchange.

When the FBI sells the coins won't it be pretty obvious?

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#143

Post by briefcomment »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #73
benmmurphy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they carried out the attack they would have had the private key in their possession.

That was exactly my thought. Especially together with 'FBI Director Compares Ransomware to 9/11' articles like https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/fbi-chris-wray-ransom...

Our "respected authorities" have been "predicting" this since last year [1].

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=0DKRvS-C04o

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#144

Post by smoldesu »

paulpauper wrote: post #138
colechristensen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People overestimate criminals. The ones that get caught, especially. What would you do if you were a foreign intelligence service? Participate in attacks yourself? No! You would drop hints and supply tools sideways to sloppy groups of idiots enabling them to be destructive, maybe acquiring some funds, and keeping your hands as clean as possible. Then when it comes out that "elite russian hackers" were incompetent idi…

hacker gangs can make tens of millions dollars. No security consultant makes that much.

Hacker gangs also apparently lose 2.4 million dollars at the drop of a hat, which is something that no security consultant ever has to worry about.

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#145

Post by smoldesu »

shiado wrote: post #24

This story makes absolutely no sense at all. The errors present by these hackers are so comical it's simply unbelievable. I'm supposed to believe some elite Russian hacking group keeps their crypto wallets running on a US host where the FBI just logs right in and snatches the private key? I'm starting to entertain the conspiracies that the future of commodities price manipulation is fake ransomware attacks. There nee…

The "elite" hackers are the ones who wrote the ransomware software. You can tell because (apparently) most of them haven't been caught yet.

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#147

Post by [deleted] »

paulpauper wrote: post #74

I am guessing that the key pair generation process was faulty. The FBI found an exploit in a wallet used by the hackers allowing the private key to be predicted. The prefix is bc1,which is uncommon. A few weeks ago there was such a vulnerability with Cake Wallet. Or they installed malware on the hacker's computers and were able to log the private key as it was generated. Or the hackers foolishly stored the key pairs…

[deleted]

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#148

Post by 71a54xd »

koheripbal wrote: post #57
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says they're elite? I know that ironically many hackers have poor security practices themselves.

While I suspect the DOJ is leaving out critical information, it is true that these gangs are not nearly as elite as some people imagine. They just happen to be in an untouchable legal jurisdiction.

It's even more ironic (and troubling) that seeming amateurs managed to shutdown an entire pipeline :)

Can't wait to read this report!

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#149

Post by shiado »

Here is the FBI controlled address, presumably a Coinbase deposit address

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/bc1qq2euq8pw950klpjca...

Which got funds from

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/3EYkxQSUv2KcuRTnHQA8t...

This is the wallet explorer used for clustering the wallet

https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/123085fff68ee703/addre...

I have no idea why they censored out parts of the bitcoin addresses as googling the uncensored part and transaction quantities lets you find them on countless sites.

Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside

#150

Post by blhack »

I think that the people here speculating about the FBI and private keys are greatly overestimating the competency of these hackers.

While it's possible this it he FBI flexing some muscle that they have a backdoor into bitcoin's hashing algorithm, what seems much more likely (to me) is:

There is a more sophisticated hacking group which created this particular ransomware package. They sell this ransomware package to less sophisticated criminals.

(https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428996/colonial-pipelin...)

Is it so hard to imagine a scenario where the more advanced creators of this ransomware kit gave instructions to their purchasers on things like private keys, and the end user simply ignored them?

Somebody ignoring a warning when installing a software, and that allowing the FBI to subpeona access to the server where it was running, and grab this private key, seems FAR more likely to me than the FBI having a backdoor into BTC, or this all being a cover spy novel plot, or anything like that.

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