Millions of users

Authorities take cybercrime forums offline

Several people were arrested as part of Operation Talent.

(Bild: BKA)

The Public Prosecutor General's Office in Frankfurt am Main and the German Federal Criminal Police Office have shut down two cybercrime forums with millions of users. According to the authorities, these were the world's largest trading platforms for cybercrime on the internet. 

More than ten million users are said to have been on the platforms "nulled.to" and "cracked.io". As part of an internationally coordinated operation led by the German authorities, action was taken against the platforms and their operators together with law enforcement authorities from the USA, Australia, Spain, Greece, Romania, Italy and France.

According to the authorities, they arrested eight people who were "allegedly directly involved in the operation of the criminal trading platforms". Among them are two Germans aged 29 and 32. A 27-year-old woman and other men aged between 21 and 29 are also suspected.

Trafficking in malware
A total of seven searches were carried out, according to the public prosecutor's office and the Federal Criminal Police Office. The investigators confiscated 67 devices, including 17 servers, twelve accounts and twelve criminally used domains in ten countries. The platforms were ultimately shut down.

In addition, a payment service provider and a hosting service that were directly part of the platforms' economic network were taken offline. The authorities also confiscated assets in the mid-six-figure range. Among other things, the platforms had been used to trade in programs, for example to prepare or carry out hacking attacks or to publish spied data from institutions and companies.

Second case: "HeartSender" store closed down
It also became known on Thursday that investigators in the Netherlands, together with the American FBI, have shut down an important web store for cyber criminals. Software for internet fraud and millions of access data were sold worldwide via the "HeartSender" store, according to the police in 's-Hertogenbosch in the south of the Netherlands. 39 servers and numerous domains were seized.

The webshop had advertised its products under several names on YouTube and other social media, such as "Sender", "Scampages" and "Cookie grabbers". This allowed cyber criminals to send masses of spam or phishing emails. The police did not reveal who was behind the web store. It is an international gang that operates very professionally.