Tag Archive for: Justice

Justice Department doubles down on efforts to thwart global cybercrime

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Fresh off its largest financial seizure ever, the Justice Department said Thursday it is doubling down on U.S. efforts to combat the sharp rise in ransomware attacks worldwide and will now prioritize disrupting cybercriminals before they act.

In a speech to attendees at the annual Munich Cyber Security Conference, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco unveiled several new initiatives by the Justice Department and FBI that she said will speed up their transformations into the kind of high-tech law enforcement agencies required to go after today’s hyperconnected and globalized cybercriminals.

Feds say "majority" of $4.4 million Colonial Pipeline cryptocurrency ransom recovered

Feds say “majority” of $4.4 million Colonial Pipeline cryptocurrency ransom recovered

By doing so, she said, the U.S. government is sending a clear message to hackers, crackers and other digital bad actors everywhere: “The long arm of the law can and now will stretch much farther into cyberspace than you think. If you continue to come for us, we will come for you.”

More: A Russian invasion could reach farther than Ukraine. How a cyberattack could affect you.

As part of that transformation, Monaco said, federal agents and prosecutors will focus far more intensively on the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in a wide array of malicious activities targeting American citizens and corporations.

“Ransomware and digital extortion – like many other crimes that are fueled by cryptocurrency – only work if the bad guys get paid,which means we have to bust their business model,” Monaco said.

The Justice Department and FBI also will expand their international operations and country-to-country partnerships to better thwart cybercriminals where they live and work, Monaco told the assembled group of security leaders.

In recent years, U.S. efforts to apprehend – and even identify – the perpetrators of massive cyberattacks against U.S. interests have been stymied by their ability to operate in countries like Russia, China and Iran, including at times with those countries’ consent or cooperation.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco speaks to The Associated Press during an interview at the Department of Justice in Washington on Nov. 2, 2021. Two suspected hackers accused of ransomware attacks resulting in 5,000 infections have been arrested as part of a global cybercrime crackdown, according to an announcement Monday by Europol.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco speaks to The Associated Press during an interview at the Department of Justice in Washington on Nov. 2, 2021. Two suspected hackers accused of ransomware attacks…

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FBI to form digital currency unit, Justice Dept taps new crypto czar

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WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has tapped a seasoned computer crimes prosecutor to lead its new national cryptocurrency enforcement team and announced on Thursday that the FBI is launching a unit for blockchain analysis and virtual asset seizure.

The creation of the FBI’s “virtual asset exploitation” unit comes after the Justice Department’s largest-ever financial seizure earlier this month. It charged a married New York couple with allegedly laundering bitcoins now valued at over $4.5 billion that were stolen in the 2016 hack of the digital currency exchange Bitfinex.

U.S. regulators under President Joe Biden have been ratcheting up their scrutiny of the crypto industry in the wake of a series of high-profile cyberattacks last year on the largest U.S. fuel pipeline network and the world’s largest beef supplier. Ransomware groups often demand their fees in bitcoin.

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In some of those cases, the FBI has been able to track down and recover some of the ransom.

Cryptocurrencies rely on blockchain technology, a database shared across a network of computers, in which records are difficult to change once added.

In a speech at the Munich Cyber Security Conference in Germany, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced that Eun Young Choi, a prosecutor who led the case against a Russian hacker who helped steal information about more than 80 million JPMorgan & Chase Co customers, will lead the department’s cryptocurrency enforcement team.

Choi, who most recently served as Monaco’s senior counsel, worked for nearly a decade as a cybercrime coordinator and assistant U.S. attorney in New York, according to her LinkedIn profile. the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York.

“We are issuing a clear warning to criminals who use cryptocurrency to fuel their schemes,” Monaco said.

“We also call on all companies dealing with cryptocurrency – we need you to root out cryptocurrency abuses. To those who do not, we will hold you accountable where we can.”

Monaco also announced the creation of a new international virtual currency initiative, and said the department will be aggressive about disrupting cyber threats, even at the…

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Justice Department indicts two men over ransomware scheme : NPR

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Attorney General Merrick Garland announced indictments against two men connected with ransomware attacks last summer.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland announced indictments against two men connected with ransomware attacks last summer.

Andrew Harnik/AP

The Justice Department says authorities have indicted two men in connection with a wave of ransomware attacks that, among other targets, shut down a meat processing company and an internet software provider earlier this year.

Attorney General Merrick Garland says one of the men, Yaroslav Vasinskyi, 22, a Ukrainian, was arrested when he traveled to Poland. The second man was identified as Yevgeniy Polyanin, a 28-year-old Russian. Garrick says the U.S. seized some $6.1 million from Polyanin.

Both men are said to be behind the REvil ransomware attacks that encrypt the data of companies and demand payments to unblock them.

REvil, A Notorious Ransomware Gang, Was Behind JBS Cyberattack, The FBI Says

Polyanin is believed to be abroad, the department says.

Garland asserted that the “U.S. government will continue to aggressively pursue the entire ransom ware ecosystem and increase our nations resilience to cyber threats.”

The Justice Department says that Vasinskyi was allegedly responsible for the July 2 ransomware attack against Kaseya, “which resulted in the encryption of data on computers of organizations around the world that used Kaseya software.”

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It says that Vasinskyi and Polyanin are charged in separate indictments with conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, substantive counts of…

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SolarWinds hackers nailed federal prosecutors’ offices, Department of Justice says

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Hackers hit the offices of top US federal prosecutors nationwide last December, breaking in to email accounts, the Department of Justice said Friday. As part of the SolarWinds hack, attackers accessed accounts at nearly 30 US Attorneys’ offices, including offices in Washington, DC; New York and California, the DOJ said.



a close up of a piece of paper: Hackers had access to email accounts for more than six months, the DOJ says. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

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Hackers had access to email accounts for more than six months, the DOJ says. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

The department had revealed in January that its Microsoft O365 email environment had been breached, but it hadn’t provided the information about the US Attorneys.

“The Department of Justice understands that when victims make information public about the nature and scope of computer intrusions they suffered, others can use that information to prepare themselves for the next threat,” the DOJ said in a statement Friday. “To encourage transparency and strengthen homeland resilience, today we are providing additional details about the SolarWinds intrusion in December 2020.”





© Samuel Corum/Getty Images


The DOJ said at least one employee’s account had been accessed at 27 offices from the West Coast to the East. It said at least 80% of employees at the US Attorneys’ offices in the Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western Districts of New York had seen their accounts breached, with other districts “impacted to a lesser degree.”

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The hackers are thought to have had access to breached accounts from about May 7 to Dec. 27 of last year, the DOJ said, adding that exposed data included sent, received and stored emails as well as attachments. The agency said in January that it had plugged the breach.

“The Department’s objective continues to be mitigating the operational, security, and privacy risks caused by the incident,” the DOJ said in its Friday statement.

The SolarWinds hack, which US intelligence agencies say likely originated in Russia, hit customers of IT software provider SolarWinds, including a number of private businesses and federal agencies. Victims included high-level officials at the Department of Homeland Security, showing that not even the government agency in charge of defending the US from foreign…

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