Mueller found that the Russian hacker scheme was dependent on bitcoin, and it may have gotten them caught

pulse

July 13, 2018 10:52 PM

The 12 Russian intelligence officers indicted by the special counsel Robert Mueller's office on Friday are accused of being involved in hacking into the emails of top Democratic officials, and the charging document says they used bitcoin to facilitate their scheme.

The 12 Russian intelligence officers indicted Friday by the special counsel Robert Mueller's office are accused of using bitcoin to facilitate their scheme.
Mueller's indictment suggests those bitcoin transactions could have helped catch the hackers.

The 12 Russian intelligence officers indicted Friday by the special counsel Robert Mueller's office used bitcoin to facilitate their scheme, the charging document says.

The indictment suggests those bitcoin transactions contributed to catching the hackers.

It alleges that they led a hacking scheme that included stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and top staffers of Hillary Clinton's campaign, in addition to targeting state and county board of elections websites.

"To hide their connections to Russia and the Russian government, the Conspirators used false identities and made false statements about their identities," the indictment says. "To further avoid detection, the Conspirators used a network of computers located across the world, including in the United States, and paid for this infrastructure using cryptocurrency."

The Russians conspired to launder the equivalent of roughly $95,000 through cryptocurrency transactions to help facilitate the purchase of infrastructure the hackers used to conduct their campaign, the indictment alleges, adding that the Russian officers did so to "capitalize on the perceived anonymity of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin."

The indictment says the hackers "principally used bitcoin when purchasing servers, registering domains, and otherwise making payments in furtherance of hacking activity."

"The use of bitcoin allowed the Conspirators to avoid direct relationships with traditional financial institutions, allowing them to evade greater scrutiny of their identities and sources of funds," it says.

Bitcoin transactions are added to a blockchain, or public ledger. But the identities of those carrying out the transactions are represented only by identifiers known as bitcoin addresses.

The hackers, the indictment says, further sought to obscure their identities by using hundreds of different email addresses, which often contained fictitious names and addresses, to make the transactions.

But Mueller, who's leading the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 US election, dropped a few hints in the indictment about how the bitcoin transactions may have played a role in catching the hackers:

A representative for Mueller declined to comment further on the importance of cryptocurrency to the hacking scheme detailed in the indictment.

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