US federal prosecutor paid 1,400$ Bitcoin ransom in cyberattack

A state prosecutor's office in Pennsylvania was among hundreds of thousands of victims of a now-shuttered international cybercrime operation, paying nearly $1,400 in a bitcoin ransom to free up its infected computer network, authorities disclosed Monday.



Federal prosecutors said in court documents only that an unidentified state government entity had been victimized by the ring known as the Avalanche network. But the Allegheny County district attorney, Stephen Zappala Jr., confirmed to The Associated Press that it was his office.



The disabling of the Avalanche network by the European Union and U.S. authorities was announced last week in Europe. Federal documents unsealed in Pittsburgh on Monday provided additional details.



The Avalanche group had operated since at least 2010 and infected at least 500,000 computers worldwide, said Soo Song, acting U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh.



"The takedown of Avalanche was unprecedented in its scope, scale, reach and level of cooperation among 40 countries," Song said.



Avalanche was a platform to distribute malware to people who wanted to buy it and use it to infect the computers of people and businesses.



In general, there were two broad types of malware. One was used to steal online banking information from computers so people known as "money mules" could transfer funds from those victims to overseas banks. The other was ransomware, which locks up a computer network until the victim agrees to pay a ransom.



The prosecutor's office was hit by ransomware in January 2015 when an employee clicked on a link embedded in phishing email, Zappala said.