Hackers Donate Stolen Bitcoin To Two Different NGOs: Report

Hackers donate stolen Bitcoin funds worth $10,000 that they acquired after ransomware exploit, to two non-profit organizations. This move resembling Robin Hood, really confused the experts as we are reading more in today’s Bitcoin scam news.

It what seems to be a case of black hat hackers acting like Robin Hood, two charitable organizations received mysterious Bitcoin donations from the cybercriminal group Darkside. According to the report, the altruistic act came from online perpetrators and left the cyber-crime space confused. This move is a first on the crypto space and doesn’t follow the modus operandi of the Darkside hackers. Two charities- Children International and the Water Project receive Bitcoin donations worth $10,000 each and the hackers even shared the receipts on the dark web.

Children International expressed objection to the donation and said they will not accept it, as a spokesperson from the organization said:

“If the donation is linked to a hacker, we have no intention of keeping it.”

As the hackers donate bitcoin, they probably had in mind that the charities will not approve their way of “giving back to society” and they even wrote:

“We think that it’s fair that some of the money the companies have paid will go to charity. No matter how bad you think our work is, we are pleased to know that we helped changed someone’s life. Today we sended (sic) the first donations.”

Brett Callow, an expert on the matter, says that their acts don’t add up. He said that the concrete motivation for slipping a part of the ransomware bounty to charities is not clear. The intentions of hackers are unknown and unusual. What the criminals aim to achieve by making these donations is not clear. Many argued that they have done it because of egoistical reasons and to be seen as Robin Hood-like characters. Whatever the motivation, it’s still an unusual step and this is the first time that a ransomware group donates a portion of their profits to charity.

The hackers leveraged the crypto donation facilitating platform The Giving Block to make the bitcoin donations as the platform allows anyone with crypto funds to donate anonymously. The data reveals that 67 charities use the company’s services to receive Bitcoin and crypto donations. It turned out that TGB was not aware of the source of these BTC funds as in an interview they assured to return the donated funds to the rightful owner:

“We are still working to determine if these funds were actually stolen.”