A cooperative effort by law enforcement agencies from the U.S., Belgium, Ukraine as well as the European agencies Europol and Eurojust, has resulted in the takedown of a vast underground digital network used by criminals to buy and sell access to hundreds of thousands of compromised servers and stolen personal information.
The marketplace went by the name of xDedic and had been around since at least 2014. It was successfully shut down last Thursday (24 January). When announcing the operation, Eurojust stated that it was a “devastating blow against the online marketplace for the illegal trade of hacked computer systems,” while “an important signal was also sent to the perpetrators of other online criminal activities, including on the dark web, that they are not immune from criminal investigation and prosecution.”
Read more: Law enforcement shuts down xDedic marketplace for hacked servers