Maybe this is just a result of good old police work: https://xkcd.com/538/
DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
201–210 of 296 posts
Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#202This 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…
“I'm supposed to believe some elite Russian hacking group keeps …” Why not. Remember Elite Russian GRU hackers identified because they all registered their cars with the DMV at the same address? https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/10/22/rus... Smart people do dumb things.
If they were elite they would have asked for more than $2 million
Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#203[deleted]
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Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#204I 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 le…
If the FBI has broke any of Secp256k1, SHA256, or RIPE160, (they have not) they’re not going to blow that on a $3M haul.
They might be saving for bigger things, however this is a lot more than $3million. It's about holding the US economy hostage, as these will increase in frequency.
Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#205I 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 le…
> I think that the people here speculating about the FBI and private keys are greatly overestimating the competency of these hackers.
It's like if some dumbass was beating the crap out of people to steal their money and everyone in the boxing community was suprised that he's not a world class boxer.
Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
A private key is not needed if the funds are on an exchange. Apparently there is a warrant to seize property on Northern California so I guess it might be Coinbase. And yeah... if the crackers sent the funds to an exchange they were comically dumb.
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…
DarkSide's announcement that they were shutting down said that their servers were compromised and taken offline. Presumably the private key was on the server and the server was hosted on a business that responds to U.S. subpoenas.
Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. If anyone had the ability to crack bitcoin addresses, they would not spend that technology on something as inconsequential as this. It would be saved for national defense issues
Completely agree but it could be perceived as a show of strength.
Still stupid. As soon as some entity reveals they have the power to crack one of these algorithms, everyone scrambles to migrate to something orders of magnitude harder. It's a weapon you'd only be able to use for maybe a few weeks or months before all the worthwhile targets immunize themselves against you.
We already have quantum safe asymmetric cryptography, just no incentive to move fast to deploy it.
Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#208I 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 le…
If the FBI has broke any of Secp256k1, SHA256, or RIPE160, (they have not) they’re not going to blow that on a $3M haul.
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Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I love viewing comment histories of people who write posts like the above. They're always fun.
Re: DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside
#210Earlier 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.
Those gangs aren’t one person, and neither are the IT security companies that are making tens (or hundreds) of millions.