How A New Team Of Feds Hacked The Hackers And Got Colonial Pipeline's Ransom Back

The Department of Justice on Monday touted the recovery of $2.3 million — about half — of the ransom that was collected by hackers in the Colonial Pipeline attack last month. Experts say it was a surprising outcome to an increasingly frequent and severe crime.

"Ransomware is very seldom recovered," said April Falcon Doss, executive director of the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown Law, who described it as "a really big win" for the government. "What we don't know is whether or not this is going to pave the way for future similar successes."

That's because there are several unexplained factors that contributed to the operation's success.