The bust of the illegal Cracked and Nulled crime forums evidences the global nature of cybercrime and the impossibility of seeing it as a threat that has no regard for national boundaries.
Although at least 17 million US citizens were victims of the crime forums. law enforcement agencies in the United States, Romania, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Greece were all involved in the bust, according to the US Department of Justice.
Vodka Manufacturing Group Stoli USA declares bankruptcy after a ransomware attack. In a filing on Nov 29, CEO Chris Caldwell states that the ransomware attack was one factor among several others that led them to the bankruptcy filing, including decades-long legal battles with the Russian government.
The Dutch Police, Politie, claim to have removed a major threat to organizations all over the world by dismantling two of the most notorious ‘infostealers’, software designed to breach computer systems to steal sensitive information.
“Operation Magnus,” conducted in collaboration with Team Cybercrime Limburg, is reported to have taken down the Redline and META info stealers, which have been responsible for infecting millions of computers worldwide with malware, leaving them open to devastating ransomware attacks and other threats.
An international operation coordinated by Europol has resulted in several arrests and the takedown of numerous cybercriminal networks. The operation focused on tackling the growing problem of the weaponization of botnets, which are strings of connected computers. Cybercriminal gangs use botnets to install droppers, a type of malicious software designed to install other malware, such as ransomware, onto a targeted system.
Between 27 and 29 May of this year, Europol’s “Operation Endgame” targeted droppers, including IcedID, SystemBC, Pikabot, Smokeloader, Bumblebee, and Trickbot. The actions focused on disrupting criminal services, making arrests, taking down criminal infrastructures, and freezing illegal proceeds.
The law enforcement agencies behind Operation Endgame are seeking information about Odd, who is allegedly behind the ‘Emotet’ malware.
Initially a banking trojan, the ‘Emotet’ malware evolved into a tool that delivers an array of payloads, including TrickBot, IcedID, QakBot, and others.
International law enforcement is hailing last week’s bust of LabHost, the world’s largest phishing-as-a-service platform, as a major victory in the war against cybercrime. In addition to multiple arrests, the Europol-co-ordinated investigation also unearthed the identities of around 10,000 users of the illegal site, many of whom are now already under police investigation.
The year-long investigation, led by the UK’s London Metropolitan Police, resulted in the arrest of 37 suspects worldwide following Europol-coordinated raids across 70 addresses worldwide. Partners in the investigation also included Chainalysis, Intel 471, Microsoft, The Shadowserver Foundation, and Trend Micro.
Online investment fraudsters are becoming more devious and organized, making their increasingly sophisticated scams tough to detect for ordinary investors. A bust carried out by Europol and local European law enforcement on the perpetrators of the €645 million JuicyFields marijuana investment scam on April 11 is a prime example.
Europol estimates that 550,000 investors worldwide, most from Europe, were drawn into the scam. Using bank transfers or cryptocurrencies, around 186,000 participants transferred funds to JuicyFields from early 2020 to July 2022. The JuicyFields fraudsters used advertisements on social networks to lure victims to their websites. These offered crowdsourcing investment opportunities in the cultivation, harvesting, and distribution of marijuana plants to be used for medicinal purposes. For a minimum initial investment of €50 in a so-called ‘e-growing’ opportunity, investors were promised to be linked with producers of medical cannabis.
U.S. and U.K. authorities announced the seizure of the LockBit ransomware gang’s extortion website.
The “Operation Cronos” campaign was led by the UK’s National Crime Agency, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Europol, in collaboration with a coalition of police agencies from 9 countries globally. However, LockBit posted messages on an encrypted messaging app saying its backup servers were unaffected.
The European Union (EU) has adopted its first Cybersecurity Certificate scheme to boost cybersecurity in products and services sold within the EU states, amid ongoing investigations of alleged corruption in Brussels.
The European Cybersecurity Scheme on Common Criteria (EUCC) drafted by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) was adopted on Wednesday as the first scheme within the EU cybersecurity certification framework. ENISA is also already developing two additional cybersecurity certification schemes: EUCS on cloud services and EU5G on 5G security.
But the announcement coincided with another press release published by the EU on the same day. On Wednesday, Jan 31st, 2024, the Committee on Civil Liberties also endorsed the draft negotiating mandate for stronger rules against corrupt decision-makers across all levels in the EU. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) amended the draft anti-corruption provisions to cover “any person entrusted with tasks of public interest or in charge of a public service”, with top EU decision-makers, European Commissioners, the President of the European Council and MEPs to be added to the category of “high-level officials” who will now be subjected to more severe rules than in the past.
A now arrested Ukrainian-based hacker infiltrated cloud-computing accounts to create over 1M virtual servers to mine $2M worth of cryptocurrencies, Europol announced.
The Europol investigation shed light on the dangers behind cloud computer hijacking campaigns used for large-scale illicit crypto mining.
Based on a Netwrix survey, the financial sector in 2023 experienced the most cyberattacks among any other sector in 2023.
Surveying 1,610 IT and security professionals from more than 100 countries, the survey also revealed phishing and malware to be the most common attacks across all sectors.
According to Truecaller, US consumers were faced with two billion spam calls per month.
Truecaller’s Monthly US Spam and Scam Report also unveiled that around 195 million hours were wasted by answering these scam calls. The goal of these scam calls is to carry out credit card fraud, identity theft, and sensitive data collection.
Europol released a statement directed to European law enforcement agencies to prepare for the impact quantum computing will have on the cybersecurity ecosystem.
This warning is based on Europol’s latest report, “The Second Quantum Revolution: The Impact of Quantum Computing and Quantum Technologies on Law Enforcement” which dives into the threats and opportunities of quantum computing to threat actors.
The European Police Office (Europol)’s first-ever threat assessment on the topic, ‘The other side of the coin: an analysis of financial and economic crime in the EU’, aims to shine a spotlight on a EUR 188 billion-plus international underground criminal economy.
Editorial Team
