According to a hacktivist off- shoot of Anonymous, Ghost Security Group has claimed that they have found a bitcoin wallet which contains $3 million that is linked to the self- proclaimed Islamic State terror group.Last Friday, the terrorist group has attacked Paris, killing over 130 people and injuring hundreds more.
For a while now, the Ghost Security Group has been fighting an online battle with the ISIS extremists and have successfully detected that how the terrorist group recruit members.Along with that, they have successfully stopped the funding operations of the organization and have leaked the details of their plans.On October, Ghost Security Group has split from Ghost Security and formed a new group. It stated in its website,“Ghost Security Group is a counter terrorism network that combats extremism on the digital front lines of today utilizing the internet and social media as a weapon.Our cyber operations consist of collecting actionable threat data, advanced analytics, offensive strategies, surveillance and providing situational awareness through relentless cyber terrain vigilance.”Previously it was reported that the terrorist group has been experimenting with bitcoin.
It is believed that an affiliate of ISIS has received $23 million in bitcoin in September.After the Paris attacks, when asked to the Ghost Security Group that whether they have noticed any abnormal activity to which a representative of the Ghost Security replied,“Yes, we did detect several indicators of an attack impending and are currently in the process of collecting valuable evidence for United States government officials.I cannot go into more detail at the moment on current investigations.”Last year a man calling himself Amreeki posted a pdf to a word press blog explaining the problems that they are facing to fund their operations. According to him, the solution is bitcoin.Ghost Security group further stated in its website, “The group’s new trademarked look discards the hoodies and Guy Fawkes masks associated with publicity stunts and distributed denial- of- service (DDos) attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites in favor of pristine white graphics devoid of any reference to illegal activities.Part of the transition has included discarding their old brand and website, www.GhostSec.org, which are now used by former group members who have a different philosophy and approach to combating ISIS online.”Currently, the GhostSec has 12 core members and they work 16 hours a day and 7 days a week non- stop.Some of the things that are among the capabilities of the counter- surveillance of Ghost Security Group are data- mining, identity stitching, email monitoring, predictive analysis, social media surveillance, terrorism financing and social engineering.Finally, the interesting fact is not that terrorists can use new technology such as bitcoin, they do also use the Internet and fiat currencies, but the fact that their wallet and bitcoins can be tracked, due to the blockchain technology.
