AFP reports that because the value of BTC had increased dramatically, a ransomware victim wound up getting back a small fortune when they recovered the bitcoin they had paid.
The southern Maastricht University in 2019 had paid 200,000 euros ($208,000) in bitcoins to attackers who had encrypted hundreds of Windows servers and backup systems. But the following year they got lucky:
Dutch police traced part of the ransom paid to an account belonging to a money launderer in Ukraine.
Prosecutors in 2020 seized this man’s account, which contained a number of different crypto currencies including part of the ransom money paid by Maastricht.
“When, now after more than two years, it was finally possible to get that money to the Netherlands, the value had increased from 40,000 euros to half-a-million euros,” the paper said.
Maastricht University will now get the 500,000 euros ($521,000) back.
Read more at Security Week.