The United States, as part of an operation coordinated by the State Department in which the FBI participated, they got better much of the ransom that was paid last May to the DarkSide hacker group, responsible for carrying out a cyberattack against the Colonial Pipeline systems, one of the largest and most important pipelines in the United States. On Monday, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said investigators had “found and recovered” 63.7 bitcoins, worth 2.3 million dollars (about 1.9 million euros), which is a large chunk of the 75 bitcoins paid by the company. of payment, before a crash of cryptocurrencies, they were worth 4.4 million dollars).

The cyber attack had been carried out last May 7 with a “ransomware”, which is malicious software installed by hackers that blocks some data, which is unlocked only with the payment of a ransom. rescue). About two weeks after the attack, Colonial Pipeline Manager Joseph Blount had confirmed that he had authorized the payment of a ransom of 4.4 million dollars (approximately 3.6 million euros) to allow the resumption of the activities of the oil pipeline, blocked by the attack.

– Read also: What the DarkSide hackers wanted to do with Colonial Pipeline