[Dismas]

Colonial paid the 75 BTC bounty, which at the time was worth ~$5 million. While it's not advisable to not pay ransoms, sometimes it works out. If the perpetrator is otherwise honest/professional, it's possible they'll part ways once paid.

Colonial Pipeline paid the hackers who shut down some of its networks nearly $5 million in ransom, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said Thursday.

News of the payment was first reported by Bloomberg. The U.S. official did not say how or when the company paid.

Colonial, which operates the country’s largest fuel pipeline, announced it had been hacked Friday, and shut down all four of its major pipelines that serve the Eastern and Southeastern United States as a precaution. Gas prices rose, and some stations ran out of fuel. The Department of Transportation issued an emergency order allowing truckers driving fuel in affected states to work longer hours than federal regulations normally allow.

Read More: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/co...l-n1267286

[Dismas]

DarkSide's site has been shut down, likely in fear of government entities:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/se...huts-down/

[Losi]

So an easy solution is to actually make back ups or have your operating system's language set to Russian. Got it.

[Dismas]

The U.S. has supposedly seized $2.3 million of currency paid to DarkSide:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/...021-06-07/

[fritz]

The U.S. has supposedly seized $2.3 million of currency paid to DarkSide:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/...021-06-07/

A good day of work for the FBI

While it's not advisable to not pay ransoms, sometimes it works out.

Well I guess not this time then
By the way, using BTC, and not any kind anonymizer (I know only CoinJoin that works pretty well, but even with that I wouldn't try for something that big) before sending to exchanges is pretty stupid!

[mothered]

Colonial paid the 75 BTC bounty, which at the time was worth ~$5 million. While it's not advisable to not pay ransoms, sometimes it works out.

I think a given company needs to calculate the ransom amount requested, against current and future financial loss.

If the latter outweighs the former to a significant extent and provided the attacker Is true to his word, paying the ransom Is understandable.

[Dismas]

The U.S. has supposedly seized $2.3 million of currency paid to DarkSide:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/...021-06-07/

It's worth mentioning that this is only about half of the money.

[fritz]

The U.S. has supposedly seized $2.3 million of currency paid to DarkSide:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/...021-06-07/

It's worth mentioning that this is only about half of the money.

Counting their other ransoms, it's actually even much less than the half : https://www.elliptic.co/blog/darkside-ra...in-bitcoin