Category Archives: europol

Larger CyberBunker investigation yields shutdown of DarkMarket

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German law enforcement has shut down an internet market where users bought and sold narcotics, stolen data and hacking tools, authorities said Tuesday. The forum, known as DarkMarket, was the internet’s largest bazaar for illicit goods, the European police agency Europol said, with more than 2,400 vendors and 320,000 transactions completed. Police said they apprehended a single suspect, a 34-year-old Australian man accused of operating the site, near the German-Danish border.  The law enforcement action originated in a larger investigation into the internet hosting provider known as CyberBunker, a notorious service that scammers for a generation have used to operate with little fear of detection.  The CyberBunker hosting service was based in former North Atlantic Treaty Organization bunkers in Holland and then Germany, helping controversial sites avoid police legal enforcement from military-style basements. CyberBunker has housed servers for the Pirate Bay, WikiLeaks and a range of dark net markets as […]

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Larger CyberBunker investigation yields shutdown of DarkMarket

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German law enforcement has shut down an internet market where users bought and sold narcotics, stolen data and hacking tools, authorities said Tuesday. The forum, known as DarkMarket, was the internet’s largest bazaar for illicit goods, the European police agency Europol said, with more than 2,400 vendors and 320,000 transactions completed. Police said they apprehended a single suspect, a 34-year-old Australian man accused of operating the site, near the German-Danish border.  The law enforcement action originated in a larger investigation into the internet hosting provider known as CyberBunker, a notorious service that scammers for a generation have used to operate with little fear of detection.  The CyberBunker hosting service was based in former North Atlantic Treaty Organization bunkers in Holland and then Germany, helping controversial sites avoid police legal enforcement from military-style basements. CyberBunker has housed servers for the Pirate Bay, WikiLeaks and a range of dark net markets as […]

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Feds seize VPN service used by hackers in cyber attacks

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By Deeba Ahmed
Cybercriminals’ Favorite VPN Service Rendered ‘Inaccessible’ in a Joint Operation Conducted by Europol and the FBI.
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International sting shuts down ‘favorite’ VPN of cybercriminals

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The latest international action against cybercrime infrastructure involves the takedown of a virtual private network (VPN) used to hide the activities of ransomware gangs and other illegal operations. The FBI and European police announced the sting against the Safe-Inet service Tuesday morning. The VPN company was billed as “cybercriminals’ favorite” by Europol. The FBI said three Web domains associated with the service — safe-inet.com, safe-inet.net and insorg.org — had been seized and then plastered with notices from police. Officials said that taking down Safe-Inet was disruptive to major active cybercriminal campaigns, but they did not specify what those were. “Active for over a decade, Safe-Inet was being used by some of the world’s biggest cybercriminals, such as the ransomware operators responsible for ransomware, E-skimming breaches and other forms of serious cybercrime,” according to a news release from Europol, the top police agency for the European Union. “This VPN service was […]

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Dark Web’s only Finnish language market Sipulimarket seized

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By Deeba Ahmed
Finnish authorities were able to take down Sipulimarket with support from Polish authorities and Europol. Here’s what the marketplace illegally sold.
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Authorities disrupt massive stolen credit card trading scam on dark web

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By Deeba Ahmed
Dubbed Carding Action 2020; the operation aimed at targeting several dark web marketplaces resulting in saving $48million/€40 million.
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Malware service operators arrested; offered antivirus bypassing tools

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By Deeba Ahmed
The malware encryption service run by a Romanian duo helped hackers embed malicious code in legit software to bypass antivirus tools.
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Police arrest 2 in connection with CyberSeal, Dataprotector crime services

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Romanian police have arrested two people for allegedly distributing malicious software designed to evade anti-virus protections to more than 1,560 accused cybercriminals, Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, said Friday. The international crackdown, which Europol and the FBI supported, targeted a decade-long scheme that provided crooks with relatively cheap access to victim computers, which they used to carry out information-stealing and ransomware attacks. The two Romanian suspects, whom authorities did not identify, allegedly ran “crypting” services designed to sneak malicious code past anti-virus software. The services, dubbed CyberSeal and Dataprotector, sold for between $40 to $300, according to Europol. The two suspects also allegedly offered cybercriminals access to a platform to test their malware against anti-virus software for as little as $7. It’s the latest effort by global law enforcement agencies to strike at the heart of infrastructure used by people accused of facilitating costly hacking schemes. Europol and Australian police […]

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As COVID-19 travel restrictions eased, scammers pounced

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You can add travel-booking scams to the ways that cybercriminals have adapted to the pandemic-era economy. After slashing prices on the hacking tools sold on underground forums and targeting software used for remote work, crooks have been monitoring the fluctuations in travel restrictions around the world for an opportunity to hawk illicit travel schemes, according to research published Tuesday by the threat intelligence firm Gemini Advisory. The analysts found an uptick in travel-related chatter on over a dozen cybercriminal forums since July, not long after countries in Europe began loosening travel controls. Mentions of travel-related issues on the forums went from roughly 100 per day in early June to more than 600 per day in early September, Gemini Advisory analysts said. “Numerous dark web forum members and Telegram channels have resumed advertising travel services after being dormant during the peak of COVID-19 pandemic,” Gemini Advisory said in a blog post. “One prominent […]

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Trickbot on the Ropes Part 2: The QQAAZZ Money Laundering Ring

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While shutting down the technical aspects of malware is critical (see Trickbot on the Ropes Part 1), the real disincentive to the criminals is when you hit them hard in the money.  That was the objective of Europol’s Operation 2BaGoldMule case against … Continue reading Trickbot on the Ropes Part 2: The QQAAZZ Money Laundering Ring→