The United States government has offered a bounty of $10million for colonial pipeline hackers. Earlier in May, about a 5,500-mile-long fuel pipeline on the east coast of the US was shut down due to a DarkSide ransomware attack.

Credit: news18

It is heard that the bounty is offered for information. Because it can lead to the “identification or location of any individuals” in a leadership position with DarkSide. Recent statistics say that the pipeline carries 45% of the fuel used on the east coast.

Credit: insurancejournal

Crypto-currency analysis company Elliptic revealed that DarkSide received almost $90m as payments. This huge number of payments came from 47 victims. The Colonial Pipeline company shut down its operations when the cyber-attack caused fuel shortages. However, the US authorities claimed that the majority of the ransom paid by the Colonial Pipeline had been recovered.

Credit: axisins

To arrest a specific cyber-criminal, $10m is the largest bounty ever offered. Previously the record bounty was offered at $3m for another alleged cyber-crime boss called Evgeniy Bogachev.