On Thursday, a global coalition of law enforcement agencies from Australia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the United States successfully dismantled and confiscated two major hacking forums along with two additional cybercriminal services.
The operation’s details emerged from announcements by Europol and Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), followed shortly by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issuing its own statement that shed light on the two forums named Cracked and Nulled.
The DOJ reported that since its inception in 2018, Cracked attracted over 4 million users who engaged in the exchange of cybercriminal tools and pilfered data, generating an estimated $4 million in revenue. Prosecutors indicated that the information disseminated through these forums impacted at least 17 million Americans.
One victim, a woman from New York, reportedly faced harassment through cyberstalking and sextortion by an individual utilizing a service provided by Cracked, which advertised access to “billions of leaked websites” that enabled users to search for stolen login information. According to the prosecutors, “A cybercriminal input the victim’s username into the tool and retrieved her account details, subsequently stalking her and sending sexually abusive and threatening messages.” The DOJ stated that the seizure of these forums aims to disrupt such cybercrimes and hinder the spread of these tools within the cybercrime community.
In another example, the DOJ pointed out that Nulled featured a product claiming to contain the names and Social Security numbers of half a million U.S. citizens.
Operating since 2016, Nulled boasted over 5 million users and more than 43 million posts promoting hacking tools and stolen data. The DOJ indicated that Nulled generated approximately $1 million annually.
According to the DOJ press release, Lucas Sohn, a 29-year-old Argentinian residing in Spain, has been accused of serving as an “active administrator” of Nulled, facing criminal charges for various cyber offenses, including the trafficking of passwords and unauthorized computer access.
Sohn may face a maximum sentence of five years for conspiracy to traffic passwords, a decade for access device fraud, and up to 15 years for identity fraud, as reported by the DOJ.
For further details, you can view the criminal complaint against Lucas Sohn, as well as the seizure warrant for Nulled.to.
Compiled by Techarena.au.
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