The business and property division of the British High Court has instructed crypto exchange Bitfinex to freeze a account containing funds worth USD 860,000 after hearing that its owner may have links to a ransomware scam.
Per documentation released by the court, an unnamed “Canadian insurance company,” itself the client of an unnamed “English insurer,” was hit with a ransomware attack. Hackers, the court said, succeeded in installing the BitPaymer software on the Canadian company’s computers, and then encrypted the latter’s data.
The attackers then sent emails to the victim, including the following:
“Hello, to get your data back you have to pay for the decryption tool. The price is USD 1,200,000. You have to make the payment in bitcoin.”
The Canadian company, acting with the British insurer, then paid USD 950,000 worth of Bitcoin to the attackers. However, the hackers appear to have converted only a tiny amount of that figure into fiat with the remainder left in what appears to be an account on the exchange.
The British court has ordered Bitfinex to pass over its know-your-customer (KYC) information on the account owner.
As media outlet New Money Review reports, the court’s decision could bring about a legal precedent. The fact that the court allowed its business and property division to tackle the case could possibly pave the way for UK courts to consider cryptocurrencies as property in subsequent cases.
However, as reported in November 2019, UK Jurisdiction Taskforce confirmed that cryptoassets "to be treated in principle to be property, bringing the legal treatment of tokens into line with public perception."
