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US State Department Offers to Pay for Cybercrime Tips With Crypto
It’s part of the White House’s new anti-ransomware push.
The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program is adding crypto to its payout options, in a first for a federal agency.
The program offers a reward of up to $10 million for information on cybercriminals “acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government,” the State Dept. said Thursday, adding:
“Reward payments may include payments in cryptocurrency.”
A State Department spokesperson confirmed that "This marks the first time since its establishment in 1984 that the Rewards for Justice program has offered a reward payment in cryptocurrency."
The RFJ announcement comes on the heels of the Biden Administration reportedly ramping up its anti-ransomware efforts. Ransomware has become increasingly important for U.S. officials after the Colonial Pipeline attack shut down East Coast fuel operations in May. The company paid bitcoin ransoms to its attackers, though federal officials were later able to recover most of the funds.
"Commensurate with the seriousness with which we view these cyber threats, the Rewards for Justice program has set up a Dark Web (Tor-based) tips-reporting channel to protect the safety and security of potential sources," the State Department said in its announcement, providing this Tor address.
UPDATE (July 15, 2021, 20:50 UTC): Updated with a confirmation from the U.S. State Department that Thursday's announcement marks the first time it will pay a reward in cryptocurrency.
Zack Seward
Zack Seward is CoinDesk’s contributing editor-at-large. Up until July 2022, he served as CoinDesk’s deputy editor-in-chief. Prior to joining CoinDesk in November 2018, he was the editor-in-chief of Technical.ly, a news site focused on local tech communities on the U.S. East Coast. Before that, Seward worked as a reporter covering business and technology for a pair of NPR member stations, WHYY in Philadelphia and WXXI in Rochester, New York. Seward originally hails from San Francisco and went to college at the University of Chicago. He worked at the PBS NewsHour in Washington, D.C., before attending Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.
