Indian Police Seize $1.2 Million Worth Of Bitcoin From Hacker

Bengaluru Joint Commissioner of Police Sandeep Patil has announced it seized Bitcoin worth about $1.2 million from an arrested Indian hacker.

The report by India Today that the said hacker Srikrishna, popularly known as Shreeki, was arrested in November for hacking government websites.

When the police and law enforcement was investigating the incident, they discovered other hacking incidences the hacker has perpetuated in the past. The investigation revealed that Shreeki had hacked 10 poker sites and 3 Bitcoin exchanges to steal over 30 Bitcoins.

The hacker also compromised the government website

The hacker also hacked other websites, including online gaming portals to win money and cryptocurrencies online.

He launched his attacks via malware to target government sites. Srikrishna has reportedly confessed to the crimes as well as the compromise of the Karnataka government’s e-procurement website in 2019. The city of Bengaluru, popularly known as Bangalore, is the country’s IT hub, just like San Francisco in the U.S.

The Bengaluru police and other law enforcement are still investigating the incident to find out if other persons were involved in the hacking incidents.

A high rate of crypto hacks

As the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry is growing, the spate of cyber attacks on the industry is also growing, as hackers are seeing new opportunities to steal crypto assets.

The rise in the activities of hackers is mainly due to the significant increase in cryptocurrency prices.

Earlier this month, the crypt market prices hit $1 trillion for the first time, with the value of the world’s number one cryptocurrency rose above $40,000 for the first time as well. Although the market has contracted a bit in the past week, the market is still experiencing a good period.

This uptrend in the crypto market has attracted a lot of institutional investors, as well as threat actors too.

India’s cryptocurrency mining rate has been over 400% higher in the past few months than in other regions. It makes the Indian crypto market one of the busiest in the world. In the same vein, the drive-by download attack has increased by 300% more than the regional and global average.

Within the region, India was the seventh-highest victim of malware attacks, with a 5.89% attack rate. Again, the figure is 1.1 times higher than the figure recorded in the region.

According to the same report, India recorded the third-highest ransomware attacks within the Asian region. It has kept the cybercrime unit of the Bengaluru police busier than ever.