Darkside Ransomware Gang Received Nearly $5 Million as the Extortion Amount from the Victims of Colonial Pipeline Attack

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Security experts at London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic discovered the bitcoin wallet used by the ransomware group responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack and the extortion amount received from victims. 

According to a report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, the ransomware gang Darkside received a ransom payment of 75 Bitcoin, or roughly $5 million, made by Colonial Pipeline on May 8 following the cyberattack on its operations.

The cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline led to widespread fuel shortages in the U.S. and has been described as the worst cyberattack on critical U.S. infrastructure to date. 

Security researchers first spotted the ransomware gang’s operation in August 2020 and nearly after 9 months in May 2021, the FBI confirmed the role of the Darkside ransomware gang in engineering the attack on Colonial Pipeline.

In total, just over $90 million in Bitcoin ransom payments were made to DarkSide, emerging from 47 distinct wallets. According to DarkTracer, 99 organizations have been attacked with the DarkSide malware – indicating that almost half of DarkSide victims paid a ransom and that the average payment was

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