The Anti-terrorism group of ethical hackers, Ghost Security Group (GSG), said that ISIS regularly uses cryptocurrencies to fund its terrorist operations.
The anonymous member of GSG has uncovered several Bitcoin addresses that they said, might be used by ISIS. One of the accounts they analyzed was found to contain $3 Million in US dollars worth of Bitcoins.
The world watched in horror as coordinate attacks in Paris Friday night killed more than 130 people and left over 352 injured.
Following the bloody terror attacks, the hacktivist collective Anonymous declared war on the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) saying, "We will launch the biggest operation ever against you."
"The Islamic State does use cryptocurrencies as a form of income to fund their ongoing operations, and we have managed to uncover several
Bitcoin addresses used by them," a member of Ghost Security Group
said in an interview with NewsBTC.
"We had discovered a BtC address linked to a known Islamic State deep website approximately three months ago and provided it to dw.com. They hired a team of blockchain analysts to trace the cryptocurrency to the estimated 3 million in BtC the discovered."
Although there are no actual proofs that cryptocurrencies were used to support the terrorist attacks in Paris, GSG claimed…
…it had uncovered several
Bitcoin funding sites utilized by the ISIS on the dark web and successfully shut them down to limit the funding extremists receive through the use of cryptocurrencies.
There's a joke in the legal world that criminals' most dangerous weapon is the flush toilet. Imagine, a perfect evidence-disposal system installed in every home in America, available whenever you hear the detectives knock on your door. Tens thousands of potential arrests have been flushed down toilets over the years.
Today, instead of the flush toilet, we learned about the PlayStation 4. In a now-retracted story, Forbes made the case that PlayStation's private chat and
VoIP features may have been used in plotting the attacks, kicking off a wave of concerns over gaming networks and their potential use in plotting terrorist acts.
While Forbes has since backed off the claim that a
PS4 was found in an attacker's apartment, the air of suspicion hasn't fully lifted. There really have been cases of
ISIS sympathizers using the PlayStation network to communicate or recruit, and it's the kind of offbeat channel an intelligence officer might miss. PlayStation’s network is open to anyone with the right console, and there’s lots of noise to distract anyone who might look there. As the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill heads to parliament, the political will to clamp down on those networks is stronger than it's ever been. So why shouldn't we?
The first thing to say is that the PlayStation network isn't particularly secure. It's not end-to-end encrypted, and Sony is open about the company's right to surveil users, even if it doesn't have much of an apparatus to do so. Unlike encrypted chat apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, the PlayStation networks weren't designed with security in mind, and most users care far more about latency and downtime than they do about privacy. If an intelligence service is looking for you specifically, it's just not that good of a place to hide.
What the networks do have is a lot of people, which makes them useful for meeting inconspicuously. You won't stand out if you set up a private chat on PSN, the way you might if you log onto a protected chat room or IRC channel. It's the protection of the crowd, the same way you might talk more freely in a noisy bar where you won’t be overheard. This kind of privacy is more about cultural expectations than strict security, and it’s particularly important because of that. It can be used by terrorists, sure, but so can dimly lit restaurants and crowded parks. If that's scary, then all private spaces are scary. If you believe that logic, you've made a boogeyman out of privacy itself.
All of which brings us back to the flush toilet. In the wake of a tragedy, shock makes us value security over all else, often forgetting smaller virtues in the rush to protect ourselves. It's a natural impulse, but it's worth considering where it might take us, left unchecked. With enough fear, anything comes to look threatening: a gaming console, a toilet, a smartphone. Will destroying them make us more or less powerful?
Putin: ISIS Financed by 40 Countries, Including G20 Member States
At the recent G20 summit, Russian President Vladimir
Putin said that ISIS is financed by individual businessmen from 40 countries, including some G20 members.
However, Putin hopes that the work with the G20 members in the fight against terrorism will continue. "I think that cooperation in fighting terrorism is very important," Putin told reporters.
Putin also calls out Obama for arming and training Fighters for ISIS, saying U.S.-trained rebels were leaving to join ISIS with weapons supplied by Washington.
“In my opinion, provision of military support to illegal structures runs counter to the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter,” Putin told reporters.
