The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is known to be working on a project that focuses on crypto intelligence.
“The CIA wants to add expertise in cryptocurrency and blockchain to its team of intelligence analysts in addition to communicating with industry experts,” said Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, quoted from Cointelegraph Wednesday (12/8/2021).
According to him, crypto does have a big impact, especially in the US. Given that there was a ransomware attack.
Ransomware is a simple form of extortion that is used for mass extortion, spread to multiple users and made more efficient by utilizing cryptocurrencies for the anonymity of a transaction. This is quoted from the website of the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN).
It is not explicitly stated that this project is to combat cyber attacks. But Burns only delivered a crypto intelligence project to expand financial networks to criminal groups.
Burns himself had previously sued millions of cryptocurrencies for a cyberattack against the Colonial Pipeline system in May, however a task force from the US government responded by replacing most of the lost funds.
Former CIA Director 2012-2013, Michael Morrell said he and his team had analyzed that blockchain is a very effective crime-fighting and intelligence-gathering tool. However, it is underutilized by law enforcement agencies.