Austrian firms receive bomb-threat letters; extortionists demand Bitcoin

A number of Austrian companies have received letters demanding payment of $20,000 in BTC. Otherwise the attackers threaten to activate a hidden explosive device. Police are already investigating, according to Vol.at.

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Law enforcement conducted checks in Vienna and Tyrol, but did not find any bombs. They suspect the attackers are operating from abroad.

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According to the police, they have previously dealt with false bomb threats and Bitcoin extortion.

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In November 2019, a series of false bomb threats began in Russia, shortly after the BBC published an investigation into possible involvement of entrepreneur Konstantin Malofeyev and FSB officers in the theft of funds from the cryptocurrency exchange WEX (the successor to BTC-e) totaling $450 million. An unknown “miner” demanded payment of 120 BTC stolen from the exchange.

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In December 2019, an unknown transferred 0.00006666 BTC to the miner’s wallet.

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Various sources suggest that the ‘miner’ could be a real client of the platform from Kyiv, or even Malofeyev’s own team, which is thus attempting to discredit WEX users and derail the legal proceedings over the alleged theft of funds from the exchange.

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To curb the miner’s activities, Roskomnadzor, at the request of the FSB, blocked StartMail and ProtonMail, which he used in the mailings. ProtonMail later conducted its own investigation and deleted accounts linked to the offender. After that the miner moved to various disposable e-mail services.

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In March 2020, the attacker threatened to bomb airports and airlines and again demanded 120 BTC.

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