The new structure of the regulator will fight cybercriminals and services that help them illegally obtain digital assets
US Department of Justice will create "cryptocurrency enforcement team", reports
Reuters citing Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. According to her, the group will include specialists in the field of cybersecurity and combating money laundering.
“Cryptocurrency exchanges want to be the banks of the future, so we need to make sure that people can trust the systems they use, and we need to be prepared to stop abuse. It's about consumer protection, ”Monaco explained.
Cyber ransomware usually uses various services to work with cryptocurrencies, the Deputy Attorney General said. She explained that many companies are hiding such facts instead of reporting them to law enforcement, but this is now changing.
At the end of September, hackers from the BlackMatter group demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency in the amount of $ 5.9 million from the American farm company New Cooperative from Iowa. The cybercriminals attacked the organization's network by encrypting more than 1 TB of the company's internal files.
In May, hackers hacked into the internal network of the Colonial Pipeline. The attack forced it to stop fuel supplies to several densely populated American states. As a result, Colonial Pipeline paid the hackers about $ 5 million in bitcoins to restore access to the network. In June, it became known that part of the money stolen from the Colonial Pipeline had been returned. FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbott said law enforcement authorities seized 63.7 bitcoins ($ 2.3 million), which were previously sent to the wallet of the DarkSide hacker group.