(NPR) How A New Team Of Feds Hacked The Hackers And Got Colonial Pipeline's Ransom Back

How A New Team Of Feds Hacked The Hackers And Got Colonial Pipeline's Ransom Back

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The Justice Department has assembled a new task force to confront ransomware after what officials say was the most costly year on record for the crippling cyberattacks. It managed to recover $2.3 million of the ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline in an attack earlier this year, the department announced Monday.



Andrew Harnik/AP


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Andrew Harnik/AP

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How A New Team Of Feds Hacked The Hackers And Got Colonial Pipeline's Ransom Back

The lynchpin to retrieving $2.3 million, half the company's payment, was gaining access to the private key linked to the attacker's Bitcoin account. Here's how authorities may have gotten it.