"US Treasury Tracks $5.2bn of Ransomware Transactions in Six Months"

The US Treasury has tracked $5.2bn worth of Bitcoin transactions likely to have been ransomware payments in the first half of 2021.  Its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) bureau hinted in a new report that even this amount might only be the tip of the iceberg. FinCEN said it identified 68 ransomware families in total.  The most frequently reported variants were REvil/Sodinokibi, Conti, DarkSide, Avaddon, and Phobos.  The $5.2bn figure is associated with 177 wallet addresses mentioned in the suspicious activity reports (SARs) sent by banks to the authorities to combat financial crime and money laundering.  The number of those SARs related to ransomware has soared over the first half of 2021, FinCEN said.  Some 635 were filed during the reporting period of January 1 and June 30, 2021, up 30% from the total of 487 SARs filed for the entire 2020 calendar year. There were 458 transactions reported in these SARs and a total value of suspicious activity of $590m, which is more than the value reported for all of 2020 ($416m).  FinCEN found that the average value of reported ransomware transactions per month in the first half of 2021 at around $100m.  FinCEN couldn’t say with complete certainty that all of the $5bn+ transactions it identified through blockchain analysis were ransomware related. Still, the figures certainly re-emphasize the enormous financial impact of ransomware.  FinCEN revealed that threat actors are increasingly demanding payments in currencies that are harder to track, like Monero.

Infosecurity reports: "US Treasury Tracks $5.2bn of Ransomware Transactions in Six Months"