Actions took place in Australia, Canada, the United States and more as well as ten countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom. Andrew Brookes/Westend61 / stock.adobe.com
This global crackdown, which targeted the Genesis Market platform, resulted in 119 arrests and involved more than 17 countries.
The European police office announced on Wednesday the closure of one of the world’s largest hacker platforms, which has sold millions of stolen account credentials. This global crackdown, which targeted the Genesis Market platform, resulted in 119 arrests and involved more than 17 countries, Europol said in a statement from its headquarters in The Hague. 208 properties were searched during this operation “unprecedentedcarried out by the FBI and the Dutch police and which began in 2019, Europol said.
24 arrests were made in the UK, according to the British crime agency, and 17 in the Netherlands, Dutch police said. “Genesis Market had over two million people’s identities for sale by the time it closed“, underlined the European police office. Actions also took place in countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and more than 10 countries in Europe.
«We have seriously disrupted the cybercriminal ecosystem by removing one of its main enablers“, Said Edvardas Sileris, who heads the European Center for the Fight against Cybercrime at Europol, quoted in the press release. “Genesis Market customers were located all over the world and were actively purchasing stolen packets of victim data“, until its closing on Tuesday at the end of the “Operation Cookie Monster“, of its name in English, explained Eurojust, the judicial agency of the EU, which also has its headquarters in The Hague.
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Sale of “bots”
The platform offered for sale “botsthat infected victims’ devices through malware and other methods. “At the time of purchase of such «bot»the criminals had access to all the data collected by it, such as fingerprints, cookies, saved logins and auto-fill form data“, did he declare. The information was collected in real time so that buyers were informed of any password changes.
Unlike the services of thedark web“, Genesis was easily accessible on the web but protected itself from law enforcement by being accessible “by invitation only“, specified Europol. “Its accessibility and affordable prices have significantly lowered the entry threshold for buyers, making it a popular resource among hackersadded the office.
The closure of the Genesis Market comes after several Europol operations targeting online crime. Europol dismantled in April 2022 “RaidForumswhich sold access to leaked databases owned by a number of US companies. In 2021, Europol announced that it had taken control of EMOTET, the malware “the most dangerous in the world».