US Department of Justice announces the seizure of approximately $500,000 in Bitcoin

The US Department of Justice has announced the seizure of approximately $500,000 in Bitcoin paid to the operators of the Maui ransomware strain by American health care providers.

The FBI and CISA identified Maui as a new North Korean-backed ransomware operation extorting western organisations with encryption attacks.

In May 2021, a Kansas hospital paid the gang approximately $100,000 to restore its IT network after a data-encrypting cyberattack.

Soon after, law enforcement discovered another $120,000 payment from a medical provider in Colorado.

These two payments, along with an unspecified number of others totaling $280,000, were eventually seized in May 2022.