police
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Blog
Police takes down AVCheck site used by cybercriminals to scan malware
An international law enforcement operation has taken down AVCheck, a service used by cybercriminals to test whether their malware is detected by commercial antivirus software before deploying it in the wild. The service’s official domain at avcheck.net now displays a seizure banner with the crests of the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Dutch…
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Police arrests 270 dark web vendors, buyers in global crackdown
Police arrested 270 suspects following an international law enforcement action codenamed ‘Operation RapTor’ that targeted dark web vendors and customers from ten countries. National authorities in Europe, South America, Asia, and the United States have also seized over €184 million ($207M) in cash and cryptocurrency, more than 2 tonnes of drugs (including amphetamines, cocaine, ketamine, opioids, and cannabis), and over…
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Police takes down 300 servers in ransomware supply-chain crackdown
In the latest phase of Operation Endgame, an international law enforcement operation, national authorities from seven countries seized 300 servers and 650 domains used to launch ransomware attacks. “From 19 to 22 May, authorities took down some 300 servers worldwide, neutralised 650 domains, and issued international arrest warrants against 20 targets, dealing a direct blow to the ransomware kill chain,”…
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Police dismantles botnet selling hacked routers as residential proxies
Law enforcement authorities have dismantled a botnet that infected thousands of routers over the last 20 years to build two networks of residential proxies known as Anyproxy and 5socks. The U.S. Justice Department also indicted three Russian nationals (Alexey Viktorovich Chertkov, Kirill Vladimirovich Morozov, and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shishkin) and a Kazakhstani (Dmitriy Rubtsov) for their involvement in operating, maintaining, and…
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Police takes down six DDoS-for-hire services, arrests admins
Polish authorities have detained four suspects linked to six DDoS-for-hire platforms, believed to have facilitated thousands of attacks targeting schools, government services, businesses, and gaming platforms worldwide since 2022. Such platforms are often marketed as legitimate testing tools on the dark web and hacking forums, but are mainly used to disrupt online services, servers, and websites by flooding them with traffic in distributed…
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Can VPNs Be Tracked by the Police?
Virtual private networks are designed to preserve online privacy by encrypting internet traffic and hiding IP addresses that can be used to determine user location. Most users are aware of this when they try to access a website or service when they are overseas. The IP address generally triggers the loading of a URL in the local area and may…
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Police detains Smokeloader malware customers, seizes servers
In follow-up activity for Operation Endgame, law enforcement tracked down Smokeloader botnet’s customers and detained at least five individuals. During Operation Endgame last year, more than 100 servers used by major malware loader operations (e.g. IcedID, Pikabot, Trickbot, Bumblebee, Smokeloader, SystemBC) were seized. In a press release today, Europol informs that the operation continues as law enforcement officers analyze the…
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Serbian police used Cellebrite zero-day hack to unlock Android phones
Serbian authorities have reportedly used an Android zero-day exploit chain developed by Cellebrite to unlock the device of a student activist in the country and attempt to install spyware. Cellebrite is an Israeli digital forensics company that develops tools used by law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and private companies to extract data from smartphones and other digital devices. Companies like Cellebrite commonly…
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Police arrests suspects tied to AI-generated CSAM distribution ring
Law enforcement agencies from 19 countries have arrested 25 suspects linked to a criminal ring that was distributing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) generated using artificial intelligence (AI). Operation Cumberland, coordinated by Danish law enforcement and supported by Europol, resulted in the seizure of 173 electronic devices and the identification of 273 suspected members tied to the criminal network. Most…
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Dutch Police seizes 127 XHost servers, dismantles bulletproof hoster
The Dutch Police (Politie) dismantled the ZServers/XHost bulletproof hosting operation after taking offline 127 servers used by the illegal platform. Earlier this week, the authorities in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, announced sanctions against the same bulletproof hosting provider for its involvement in cybercrime operations. Specifically, the operators of Zservers were accused of facilitating LockBit ransomware attacks and supporting…
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