In Brief:
- FinCEN links Bitcoin transactions worth $5.2 billion to ransomware payments.
- Conti, DarkSide, Avaddon,and Phobos were the most reported ransomware variants as per FinCEN.
According to the U.S Treasury Department’s report, BTC transactions worth $5.2 billion are linked with ransomware payments.
Almost 2184 SARs( Suspicious Activity Reports) from 2011-2021 were analyzed, and 177 CVC(Convertible Virtual Currency) related to ransomware variants were identified by the U.S Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
635 SARs were reported in the first half of 2021 suspecting ransomware attacks, and more than 68 ransomware variants were identified by FinCEN.
Conti, DarkSide, Avaddon, and Phobos were the most reported ransomware variants as per FinCENs report.
H1 2021 reported $590 million worth of suspicious transactions exceeding that of $416 million reported in the whole of 2020.
$1.56 billion worth of suspicious transactions were reported first by analyzing the initial SARs, only upon further inspection by FinCEN, a whopping $5.2 billion worth of bitcoin transactions over the last 3 years were revealed.
The U.S Government is already planning to track down cryptocurrency exchanges that help the ransomware groups to profit out of these illegal transactions.
According to the White House’s press release the plan is to disrupt these ransomware systems and use law enforcement to prevent further ransomware attacks and keep them in check.
