In a joint law enforcement operation, U.S. and European agencies have magnificently taken Leakbase offline. This infamous data leak forum had become a key place for sharing stolen passwords and hacking tools. Those operations recently came to a close, leading to some of the largest global coordinated enforcement actions against cybercrime in history.
Anyone visiting the new site’s homepage will be greeted by a seizure notice. This announcement shows that Leakbase’s materials, private communications, and IP address logs will be maintained for future investigations. FBI’s further decisive action Law enforcement took momentous steps by simply pointing Leakbase’s domain to their own nameservers. This action essentially killed the platform and prevented any other access.
This sprawling investigation resulted in more than 13 arrests and more than 19 simultaneous search warrant raids throughout the region. Law enforcement agencies spoke to 33 suspects to find out leakbase’s most important leaks. This platform abused well over 142,000 victims, providing a little insight into the vastness of its operations. Our forum enabled the sending and receiving of over 215,000 texts, calls, emails and tweets by our users.
Europol stated that the operation was an unprecedented coordinated effort with an estimated 100 enforcement actions across the globe. With support from Google, we took targeted action against the 37 most active users on Leakbase. This illustrates the depth and breadth of this serious cybercriminal enterprise.
Brett Leatherman, a cyber chief with the FBI’s criminal investigative division, told The Record that the takedown is a significant one. He added that this operation was only one small piece of a much larger effort that was directed at combatting cybercrime around the world. The joint effort presented by U.S. and European law enforcement officials is a clear sign of strength and determination to combat nefarious activities like these across national borders.
The effects of this operation go much deeper than the mere closure of Leakbase. That last point is crucial. The continued preservation of its database makes possible further investigation and prosecution of those facilitating cybercrime. By dismantling this forum, federal law enforcement wants to make it harder for hackers to coordinate data breaches and other hacks on a massive scale.
