The US Air Force has signed a third contract with Chainalysis to obtain a “cryptocurrency data subscription.” They are used to track supply chains.
The agency has allocated $ 779,740 for services under a contract that is dated May 19, 2020, and follows two other contracts completed in the previous two years. Collectively, the BBC has already spent $ 900,000 on analytical services from Chainalysis. There are no details about the services used in the contract, but on the description tab there is a mention of “cryptocurrency data subscription”.
Chainalysis is one of the companies that study transactions on various blockchains and use analytics tools to extract as much information from the data as possible. She works with many US government agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and her analytical tools are used to track cryptocurrency crime.
Casey Bohn, a high-tech crime specialist at NW3C, said Chainalysis could provide services to the US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI).
“OSI, for lack of a better term, is the internal FBI Air Force,” Bon said. “OSI investigates aircraft crimes in other areas such as fraud, waste and abuse. Let’s say the Air Force signs a contract with Boeing, but there are allegations or assumptions about the company related to fraud or waste. OSI will investigate on behalf of the Air Force. ”
Thus, Chainalysis data can help OSI devote more time to investigating crimes related to cryptoassets.
“The number of cryptocurrency-related crimes is growing. I think people are trying to be more original in hiding assets, ”added Bon. “I have personally trained several IRS criminal investigators, and they are starting to see more and more cryptocurrency crimes in tax evasion and tax crimes.”
In addition, the Air Force can “study threats at the national level,” said John Jeffries, chief marketing officer and chief financial analyst at CipherTrace. While national threats are diverse, some of them are especially relevant to blockchain analytics.
“Many believe that most North Korean weapons of mass destruction are funded by theft of cryptocurrencies,” Jeffreys said. Recall that last year, in a closed UN report, the DPRK was accused of stealing $ 2 billion from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges to develop weapons.
However, blockchain data can also be used by the US Air Force to solve more peaceful issues, such as supply chain management.
“At the highest level, the Air Force is a pretty advanced technology arm of the military, and they’ve done a lot of blockchain work in terms of supply chain management,” Jeffreys said.
The US Air Force has previously explored the possibilities of blockchain in this area. In June of this year, the agency signed a two-year contract for $ 1.5 million with SIMBA Chain to develop a blockchain for supply chain tracking.
Supply chain attacks are well known in today’s cyberspace. Advanced military systems are usually not connected to external public networks, which means that hackers must infiltrate the network locally through supply chain vulnerabilities.
“Maybe they are exploring the possibility of using blockchain to track the details of aircraft or other important items such as ammunition, or maybe it has something to do with national security,” he said.
