An interesting precedent: the U.S. Treasury Department, which makes lists of individuals subject to financial sanctions, for the first time included bitcoin addresses associated with individuals in the list of requisites.
The pioneers became two Iranian citizens — Ali Khorashadizadeh and Mohammad Ghorbaniyan — prior to this novelty, the Department’s list included such details as regular and e-mail addresses, passport data, known aliases, etc.
Both Iranians appear on the list as persons to whom secondary level sanctions apply. The American authorities have reason to believe that Horashadizade and Gorbanyan were involved in financial transactions related to a ransomware virus SamSam. This attack in recent years has affected more than 200 victims, including corporations, hospitals, universities, and government bodies.
Users whose computers were hit by the virus were deprived of access to their data until they paid the ransom — the attackers accepted it in bitcoins.
According to the Treasury Department, over 7 thousand transactions worth about 6,000 BTC passed through the addresses of both defendants, which they converted into Iranian rials. At least some of these funds were bitcoins received as ransom from the victims of SamSam, which were ordered by Horashadizade and Gorbanyan on behalf of the creators of the virus.
For their transactions, the Iranians used more than 40 cryptocurrency exchanges, including the U.S.-registered ones, the names were not disclosed.
The inclusion of these persons into the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (‘SDN List’) means that the effect from the sanctions can automatically expand on those who will be transferring bitcoins to these addresses — such an act will result in a complete disconnection from the United States financial system. All property or ownership interests in the property located in the United States or transiting the territory of those included in the list will be arrested.
As stated by the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker, "Treasury will aggressively pursue Iran and other rogue regimes," that are trying to use digital currency in an attempt to circumvent the measures in place to combat money laundering and the financing of criminal activities.
Note that in August, a report was published by iDefense which, in particular, stated that more and more attacks of extortion viruses were sent and coordinated from Iran. IDefense analysts believe that the Iranian government and the local hackers it supports represent a significant cyber threat to users and companies from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
“iDefense threat intelligence analysts predict that actors in Iran will continue to develop and deploy ransomware that they have repurposed from popular malware. State-sponsored organizations such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Cyber Command could use such ransomware,” — stated the report.
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