The United States is currently under the presidency of Joe Biden, and we know for a fact that the Biden administration is very actively involved in tracking down cybercrime and cyberattacks. Cryptocurrency, being a fairly new financial system attracts maximum crime potential and with the increase in its worldwide acceptance, there is a good chance that cryptocurrency can become the next cybercrime weapon.
Having said that, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has recently announced to have formed a new team of investigators, called the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), to look into the misuse of cryptocurrency in criminal activities.
Virtual currency is in itself a complex subject matter to understand and most people don’t actually know the meaning and workings of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. However, in these times when cybercrime is increasing by the day, cryptocurrency could be misused for irrecoverable disasters and that is why, under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice has come up with a special team.
As mentioned in several reports, the NCET will look into matters of corporate and individual money laundering in the cryptocurrency market, investigate services that charge money from customers to transfer cryptocurrency from one point to another, while also concealing the source of money. Engadget notes that this special team will also look into tracking and recovering assets lost to ransomware extortion demands and other fraudulent activities.
Currently, the NCET will function under the supervision of Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr., but as per the announcement, the department is looking for someone to lead the team, someone with good experience in complex criminal investigations and prosecutions, and functional knowledge of cryptocurrency and blockchain, as noted by Engadget.
Anyhow, ever wondered why criminals would prefer dealing with cryptocurrency rather than fiat currency? Well, the answer to this is pretty simple- privacy. Cryptocurrencies are very difficult to track down. The whole idea of blockchain is to secure the money transfer trail and what more could a criminal ask than not to be caught, right?
Cybercrimes are increasing by the day and some of the real-world consequences include the Colonial Pipeline disaster that gathered so much attention from all around the world. Not just this, private companies and organisations are getting hacked with sensitive data leaking every single day. Just today, Twitch was hacked and 128GB of data was available for public download which breached Twitch in its entirety, from source code to creator payout.
The point is that the United States government is considering these incidents and with special teams like the NCET, it will soon police the use of cryptocurrency to avoid any criminal activity in this market.
President Joe Biden is also hosting a meeting with 30 countries to address the threats of ransomware and cyberattacks to the global economy and national security.
