Who’s Behind the Seized Forums ‘Cracked’ & ‘Nulled’?
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Summary
As previously reported, the FBI joined law enforcement agencies across Europe to conduct an operation against English-language cybercrime forums “Cracked” and “Nulled” last week, seizing several domains.
The investigation has now revealed that both forums were owned and operated by the same individuals running an ISP and two ecommerce platforms, which acted as intermediaries for buyers and sellers on the sites.
The sites have operated since 2016 and 2018, respectively, and provided a marketplace for stolen data, hacked accounts, and malware, as well as trading tools for cybercriminals.
The operation, called Talent, was led by the US Department of Justice and involved authorities from Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Czech Republic, Romania, and Hungary.
In total, eight domains associated with “Cracked”, and its associated payment processor “Sellix”, were seized, as well as two anonymity services which allowed users to rent virtual servers.
It is believed that one of the founders of the sites, Finn Grimpe, has previously been involved in running a service hosting illicit content, resulting in a lawsuit.