The FBI penetrated a sizable ransomware group during the United Kingdom’s sentencing of an Oxford crypto fraudster. Former Oxford student pleads guilty to stealing £2.1m ($2.6m) of IOTA, sentenced to 4 years and six months in prison.
Wiersma developed a bogus website while pursuing his doctorate at Oxford, which he then used to access other people’s cryptocurrency covertly. The website allegedly produced an 81-character wallet password that customers needed to hold the cryptocurrency IOTA.
According to the fact that Wiersma had previously constructed the number string meant that he had access to each one. The computer specialist continued to drain 99 victims’ IOTA accounts between the dates above. The entire value of the items taken at the time of the theft was almost £2.1 million.
Wiersma was arrested in Jan 2019 and spent over two years on remand before trial due to difficulties finding an IT expert to explain the case to a jury. He has already served four years equivalent sentence.
FBI Closes Down Hive After Crypto Fraud
Moreover, U.K. authorities handle small crypto crime cases, and U.S. authorities target larger Hive ransomware groups with a disruption campaign.
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Furthermore, FBI infiltrated Hive’s network and captured decryption keys in July, saving $130 million in ransoms. They distributed 300+ keys to current and previous victims.
Authorities seized servers and websites used by Hive to communicate, disrupting their ability to attack and extort victims as ransomware revenue has decreased in the past year.
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