It's been utilized for unlawful dark web drug dealing, it may very well be the future of banking, and it has driven theorists on a wild ride — Bitcoin is numerous things to numerous individuals. For an expanding number, in any case, the cryptocurrency is an apparatus for extortion.

Bitcoin has been utilized before as a part of ransomware—a sort of malware that limits computer access unless a payment is paid—however another report from digital insight firm Recorded Future points out how criminals are progressively taking interest in Bitcoin as a method of payment for several types of attacks.

Tyler Bradshaw, Solutions Engineer at Recorded Future told Cointelegraph:

"The reception of Bitcoin inside the digital extortion scene is going to keep on developing"

The Recorded Future report traces how a group called DD4BC unleashed distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against organizations, conducting huge volumes of network traffic directed at an administration through a system of locations, the specific goal being to disrupt service for authentic users.

Who Is Part Of These Attacks?

The attackers, whose name remains "DDOS for Bitcoin," would undermine organizations with such network assaults, requesting a payout in Bitcoin in return for not continuing their attacks (In a September report, Internet services supplier Akamai uncovered that it had recorded 141 such attacks from the group).

The attention was drawn to the group after that report may have inspired copycat offenders, Bradshaw said. Another group called Armada Collective rapidly sprang up, utilizing the same strategy as DD4BC, and Recorded Future said it had yet found a few late Dark Web deals for data on the best way to direct comparable attacks.

The DDOS intimidation infrequently worked, as the attackers requested moderately minimal expenditure—as a rule somewhere around 10 and 200 Bitcoin, or $4,100 to $82,000 at the present exchange scale.

A gathering calling itself Armada Collective—which may not be the one that initially claimed the name—seems to have increased the ante, demanding that three Greek banks all pay 20,000 bitcoins (worth more than $7 million at the time). Despite seeing disturbances in exchanges for a period, each of the three banks declined to pay the payoff and employed increased levels of security against any such future DDOS attacks.

"Even so, the DDOS danger scene keeps on advancing. While digital extortion has been around for a long while, the appropriation of Bitcoin as a strategy for payoff will keep on pulling in new hackers into the DDOS space," the Recorded Future report finished up.

Talking with Cointelegraph, Bradshaw said he thought the obscurity generally connected with cryptocurrencies (of which Bitcoin is the most well known) "is really alluring" for those considering digital blackmail. Prior plans depended on financial balances or cash orders, he said, so crooks felt they were at more serious danger of being found by governments.

Why We Know Transactions Are Traceable

Bitcoin, in any case, is not even remotely an anonymous framework. Law enforcement organizations have on numerous occasions followed Bitcoin exchanges back to criminals. Former FBI Special Agent Ilhwan Yum traced 3,760 Bitcoin servers back to servers involved in the operation of illegal online commercial center Silk Road, and subsequently to the laptop of Ross Ulbricht.

To some extent on the basis of this evidence, a Manhattan court found that Ulbricht had been the genius behind the Silk Road, and hence found him guilty on seven counts—including being a "drug kingpin." He has been sentenced to life in jail.

That built-in audit trail has not prevented a few offenders from utilizing the computerized currency as a part of bold attacks; for example, those by DD4BC and the Armada Collective.

"Maybe that is something that is somewhat misconstrued," Bradshaw said of authorities following Bitcoin. Still, he said, the moderately insignificant obstructions to transfers and the absence of individual identifiable data attached to Bitcoin addresses make it very tempting to hackers.

Are you interested in bitcoin? Find it in our cryptocurrencies ratings and learn more.