Hackers Donate Stolen Bitcoins To Two Charities

Darknet, a mysterious group of hackers, have donated a portion of the proceeds of bitcoins it extorted from companies in a ransomware attack to two charities in the USA.

The group posted the tax receipts for its 0.88 BTC ($10,000) donations in a blog post on the dark web claiming to “make the world a better place” with the donations.

The Water Project, which works to improve access to clean water in sub-Saharan Africa and Children International, which fights poverty and helps children in need were the charity organizations that received the illegally acquired money.

According to the hackers they only attack large, profitable companies with ransomware and would not attack hospitals, schools, governments, or charities.

Ransomware is a software that encrypts computers, rendering them inoperable unless the encryption key is bought often for huge sums of money.

“We only attack companies that can pay the requested amount, we do not want to kill your business. Before any attack, we carefully analyze your accountancy and determine how much you can pay based on your net income,” the group’s statement read.

Even though Children International and The Water Project have rejected the donations by the group, they have no way of returning them because the transaction was brokered by the U.S.-based service called The Giving Block, which is used by 67 different non-profits worldwide, to make donations in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether and zcash.

Moreover, The Giving Block says the money was sent through a mixer, which is a form of automatic money laundering that obscures the true sender of bitcoin from the recipient.

The company also added that they are still working on determining if the funds were actually stolen and will additionally take the necessary steps to return them to the owners.

However, it did not clarify if this means returning the stolen money to the criminals, or attempting to work out which of the criminal victims it intended to reimburse and how

The fact they used crypto will make it easier, not harder, to catch them,” the company further noted.