Companies like Chainalysis offer blockchain monitoring and analysis services. These companies analyze whether certain BTC that move between wallets are, in any way, associated with criminal activities and can collaborate with the FBI to help investigators track certain cryptocurrency funds internationally. Exactly that scenario is now unfolding. On January 20 of this year, 10 men were arrested in the Netherlands as part of an international raid on online illegal drug markets.
The men were caught converting their bitcoins into euros in bank accounts using Bitcoin trading services and then withdrawing millions in cash from ATMs. The Bitcoin address trail supposedly links all that money to illegal online drug sales tracked by the FBI and Interpol. The F, B, I. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift items to give away each month.
Anyone can read what you share. By Nicole Perkroth, Erin Griffith and Katie Benner Criminals, who often operate in hidden places on the Internet, flocked to Bitcoin to conduct illicit business without revealing their names or locations. Digital currency quickly became as popular among drug traffickers and tax evaders as it was among opposing libertarians. However, for the growing community of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors, the fact that federal researchers had tracked the rescue as it went through at least 23 different electronic accounts belonging to DarkSide, the hacker collective, before accessing an account showed that law enforcement was growing along with the industry.
This is because law enforcement can take advantage of the same properties that make cryptocurrencies attractive to cybercriminals (the ability to transfer money instantly without a bank's permission) to track and seize criminal funds at the speed of the Internet. While digital currency can be created, moved and stored outside the scope of any government or financial institution, each payment is recorded in a permanent fixed ledger, called a blockchain. That means that all Bitcoin transactions are in plain view. Bitcoin's ledger can be viewed by anyone connected to the blockchain.
Haun added that the speed with which the Department of Justice seized most of the ransom was “innovative” precisely because of the use of cryptocurrencies by hackers. On the contrary, he said, obtaining records from banks often requires months or years of paperwork and bureaucracy, especially when those banks are abroad. Given the public nature of the ledger, cryptocurrency experts said, all law enforcement needed to do was figure out how to connect criminals to a digital wallet, which stores Bitcoin. To do this, authorities probably focused on what is known as a “public key” and “private key”.
A public key is the string of numbers and letters that Bitcoin holders have to transact with others, while a “private key” is used to maintain a secure wallet. Tracking a user's transaction history consisted of finding out what public key they controlled, authorities said. The seizure of the assets then required obtaining the private key, which is more difficult. It's not clear how federal agents were able to obtain DarkSide's private key.
Department of Justice spokesman Marc Raimondi declined to say more about how the F, B, I. According to court documents, researchers accessed the password for one of the hackers' Bitcoin wallets, although they did not detail how. It didn't appear to be based on any underlying vulnerability in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency experts said. The most likely culprit was good old-fashioned police work.
Federal agents could have confiscated DarkSide's private keys by placing a human spy inside the DarkSide network, hacking the computers where their private keys and passwords were stored, or forcing the service that holds your private wallet to hand them over through a search warrant or other means. It has partnered with several companies that specialize in tracking cryptocurrencies in digital accounts, according to officials, court documents and companies. Startups with names such as TRM Labs, Elliptic and Chainalysis that track cryptocurrency payments and point out possible criminal activities have flourished as law enforcement agencies and banks try to overcome financial crimes. Its technology tracks blockchains for patterns that suggest illegal activities.
It's similar to the way Google and Microsoft mastered email spam by identifying and then blocking accounts that spread email links to hundreds of accounts. Several longtime cryptocurrency enthusiasts said that recovering much of the Bitcoin rescue was a victory for the legitimacy of digital currencies. That would help change the image of Bitcoin as the playground for criminals, they said. Ransomware attacks have put unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges under the microscope.
Cybercriminals have flocked to thousands of high-risk centers in Eastern Europe that do not comply with these laws. After the attack on Colonial Pipeline, several financial leaders proposed banning cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency experts said that hackers could have tried to make their Bitcoin accounts even more secure. Some cryptocurrency holders do their best to store their private keys away from anything connected to the Internet, in what is called a “cold wallet”.
Some memorize the string of numbers and letters. Others write them on paper, although they can be obtained through search warrants or police work. Raimondi, from the Department of Justice, said that the seizure of a ransom by Colonial Pipeline was the latest covert operation by federal prosecutors to recover illicitly obtained cryptocurrencies. He said that the department has made “many seizures, of hundreds of millions of dollars, of unhosted cryptocurrency wallets used for criminal activities.”.
In January, the Department of Justice dismantled another ransomware group, NetWalker, which used ransomware to extort money from municipalities, hospitals, law enforcement agencies and schools. In the end, “cryptocurrencies are actually more transparent than most other forms of value transfer,” said Madeleine Kennedy, a spokesperson for Chainalysis, the startup that tracks cryptocurrency payments. . .
