Europol announced on Wednesday the takedown of one of the world’s largest hacker platforms, which sold stolen account credentials.
An international police operation involving over 17 countries targeted the Genesis Market platform, and resulted in 119 arrests and 208 property searches, the EU law enforcement agency said in a statement.
“Genesis Market had the identities of more than two million people for sale by the time it closed,” Europol said.
24 arrests were made in the UK and 17 in the Netherlands, Dutch police said. The operation was led by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Dutch National Police.
The platform offered for sale “bots” that infected victims’ devices through malware and other methods. For as little as €0.6, buyers could have real-time access to data like fingerprints, cookies, saved login and autofill form data. The most expensive bots also contained financial information allowing access to online banking accounts.
We have seriously disrupted the cybercrime ecosystem by removing one of its main enablers,” Edvardas Sileris, who heads Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, was quoted in the statement as saying.
The Dutch police developed a portal for civilians to check if their data has been stolen.
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Actions also took place in countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and more than 10 European countries, including the UK.
“We have seriously disrupted the cybercrime ecosystem by removing one of its main enablers,” Edvardas Sileris, who heads Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, was quoted in the statement as saying.
