Bitcoin's high price is fueling cyber ransomware

[CarderPlanet]

Over the past few months, ransomware operators have not weakened their attacks on American organizations in the least, and the high rate of cryptocurrencies only fuels cybercriminal activity. This was announced by the deputy director of the FBI cyber division Bryan Vorndran to the US House of Representatives Committee on Reform and Oversight.

According to MarketWatch, the bitcoin rate (a cryptocurrency used to pay ransom to ransomware operators) has grown by 300% over the year, from $ 18,000 to over $ 60,000.

The hearings in the US House of Representatives Committee on Reform and Oversight were held as part of the US Congress investigation of multimillion-dollar cyber ransomware attacks on US companies in 2021, including CNA Financial Corporation, Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods US. To restore access to its own IT network, CNA paid hackers $ 40 million in bitcoins, Colonial Pipeline - $ 4.4 million, and JBS - $ 11 million.

Recently, the FBI has been able to achieve some success in recovering the money paid by the victims. In particular, in June 2021, the bureau was able to return 64 bitcoins (at that time about $ 2.3 million), which the Colonial Pipeline company paid to hackers. Recently, the US Department of Justice also announced the arrest of Ukrainian Yaroslav Vasinsky and Russian Yevgeny Polyanin on charges of participation in the REvil group. According to the Ministry of Justice, the authorities managed to seize $ 6.1 million illegally obtained from Polyanin.