https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxqz54/secret-service-network-investigative-technique-ransomware
By Joseph Cox
Vice.com
July 10, 2020
A Seattle Police Department officer tried to unmask a ransomware attacker by
deploying his own hack, according to newly unsealed court records.
Although in this case the officer's attempt didn't work, the news shows that
the use of so-called network investigative techniques (NITs)—the U.S.
government's general term for hacking tools deployed by law enforcement—is not
limited to the FBI. Here, the Seattle Police Department official was working in
their capacity as a Task Force Officer for the U.S. Secret Service.
Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the program on extremism at George Washington
University, discovered and shared the court docket with Motherboard.
In 2016 the South Correctional Entity (SCORE) Jail in Des Moines, Washington
found ransomware on its computer network, according to the warrant application
written by Chris Hansen, the Seattle Police Department detective and Secret
Service Task Force Officer. Ransomware is a type of malware that generally
encrypts files on a target's system and then demands a bounty payment in
cryptocurrency to unlock them. In some cases, ransomware attackers will offer
to unlock a limited number of victim's files to prove they do have the
capability to recover the data.
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