Quote from: bryant.coleman on Today at 11:33:25 AM

Quote from: Mauser on Today at 06:37:28 AM

This is great news and will help a lot to legitimate crypto currencies in the future. Usually people say that cryptos are completely anonymous and that criminals tend to use it for their personal gain. If the authorities can now get the money back its a huge step. Criminals will have to think twice in the future if the really want to use cryptos again. And it gives another layer of security for companies who want to use cryptos.

Just wait until the details are known. We still don't know how the FBI managed to retrieve these coins. In case the hackers sent the coins to an exchange wallet and the exchange handed them over to the FBI, then I would say that the hackers have acted in an idiotic manner. On the other hand, if the FBI had tracked down the hackers somehow and forced them to forfeit the stolen coins, then I would appreciate the FBI. In this case, it would act as a serious deterrent to any such criminal activity in the future.

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As alleged in the supporting affidavit, by reviewing the Bitcoin public ledger, law enforcement was able to track multiple transfers of bitcoin and identify that approximately 63.7 bitcoins, representing the proceeds of the victim’s ransom payment, had been transferred to a specific address, for which the FBI has the “private key,” or the rough equivalent of a password needed to access assets accessible from the specific Bitcoin address. This bitcoin represents proceeds traceable to a computer intrusion and property involved in money laundering and may be seized pursuant to criminal and civil forfeiture statutes.

I think this information here said FBI probably has the private key but for me, I can't say how they were able to get hold of the private key.

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“There is no place beyond the reach of the FBI to conceal illicit funds that will prevent us from imposing risk and consequences upon malicious cyber actors,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. “We will continue to use all of our available resources and leverage our domestic and international partnerships to disrupt ransomware attacks and protect our private sector partners and the American public.”

With the above, the justice department and the FBI seem to have a synergy to go after hackers. We may be having more revelation on this as the day come.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-seizes-23-million-cryptocurrency-paid-ransomware-extortionists-darkside