19 ms·

The crypto still interfaces directly with the financial system on all ends. The company move money to an exchange (using the financial system), and the hacker c

The crypto still interfaces directly with the financial system on all ends. The company move money to an exchange (using the financial system), and the hacker cashes in the crypto eventually (using the financial system).

ineedasername 5y ago
It's not the company side that matters. It's that it's a lot easier for the criminals to pull a few tricks to obscure their side of things significantly. Bitcoin mixers/tumblers for example so that what comes out the other end can't easily be tracked back to the crime. I'd be extremely surprised if groups making these attacks didn't use that type of thing. If it was all bank wires etc. then law enforcement could track things mich more easily. Even if they couldn't find the hackers they could still freeze the accounts, rendering the attack worthless.
- Gaelan 5y ago
  The issue is that a tumbler doesn't make the dirty money go away, quite the opposite; it gives a bunch of other people little bits of dirty money. If I were a non-criminal, or even a smaller-time criminal, it wouldn't be in my best interests to use a tumbler that might give me this dirty money.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    It doesn't matter if they're all criminals using the mixer-- we want to track these particular ransomware hackers, and that's made extremely difficult when all we see is their lump sum enter the mixer with countless other transactions, and countless disaggregated transactions come out the other end no longer tied to the hackers, making it much harder to track down the people that brought down most of the East Coast's pipeline infrastructure. Anything like that stunt is pretty difficult to accomplish using traditional banking institutions when we know where the money is going and can track it each step of the way, or just freeze it.

19 ms·

The crypto still interfaces directly with the financial system on all ends. The company move money to an exchange (using the financial system), and the hacker c

by jimmydorry 5y ago

ineedasername 5y ago
It's not the company side that matters. It's that it's a lot easier for the criminals to pull a few tricks to obscure their side of things significantly. Bitcoin mixers/tumblers for example so that what comes out the other end can't easily be tracked back to the crime. I'd be extremely surprised if groups making these attacks didn't use that type of thing. If it was all bank wires etc. then law enforcement could track things mich more easily. Even if they couldn't find the hackers they could still freeze the accounts, rendering the attack worthless.
- Gaelan 5y ago
  The issue is that a tumbler doesn't make the dirty money go away, quite the opposite; it gives a bunch of other people little bits of dirty money. If I were a non-criminal, or even a smaller-time criminal, it wouldn't be in my best interests to use a tumbler that might give me this dirty money.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    It doesn't matter if they're all criminals using the mixer-- we want to track these particular ransomware hackers, and that's made extremely difficult when all we see is their lump sum enter the mixer with countless other transactions, and countless disaggregated transactions come out the other end no longer tied to the hackers, making it much harder to track down the people that brought down most of the East Coast's pipeline infrastructure. Anything like that stunt is pretty difficult to accomplish using traditional banking institutions when we know where the money is going and can track it each step of the way, or just freeze it.