The US Department of State has recently announced a reward of $10m for information on DarkSide ransomware members.

Indeed, following the recent ransomware attacks by the gang, the US is committed to protecting its citizens from being exploited by cybercriminals. The US is especially looking to stop the DarkSide group, which held up the CNI operator Colonial Pipeline earlier in the year, thus forcing the shutdown of a 5,500-mile oil pipeline and disrupting fuel supplies across the eastern US.

As the group is likely still active, it is vital for the authorities to gain as much intel as possible to put a stop to their activities. They are then also offering a second bounty of up to $5m for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of any affiliate attempting to conduct DarkSide ransomware attacks.

DarkSide is known as a very sophisticated and dangerous cybercriminal group that is very good at hiding its tracks through using multi-layered anonymization techniques that undermine all efforts to identify them by technical or scientific means. Thus, using bounties should help find them and bring them to justice.