Three Dutch gentlemen have been arrested on suspicion of participating in a significant cyber-extortion marketing campaign influencing tens of tens of millions of victims.
A 21-year-old from Zandvoort is the key suspect, along with a 21-calendar year-outdated from Rotterdam and an 18-12 months-old of no mounted abode, in accordance to the Dutch police.
An investigation into their alleged routines commenced in March 2021 and uncovered proof of assaults on 1000’s of businesses – both equally domestic and worldwide.
Immediately after attaining original access into specific firms and stealing delicate consumer information and facts, the men allegedly extorted their victims by threatening to wipe out their “digital infrastructure” or to leak the information publicly, in a similar way to ransomware actors.
Having said that, Dutch law enforcement claimed that “in many cases” the hackers bought the stolen data even after receiving a ransom payment.
Ransom needs have been in the €100,000–€700,0000 ($106,000–$740,000) variety, with a person report saying the primary suspect designed as a lot as €2.5m ($2.6m) in excess of the earlier couple of decades.
Between the info stolen by the trio are names, addresses and phone quantities, dates of beginning, bank account figures, credit rating card information, passwords, license plate figures, countrywide ID quantities and passport details, the law enforcement claimed.
These assaults brought about fiscal and reputational harm to the compromised organizations and distress to the folks whose details was stolen and sold on the cybercrime underground.
Among those breached had been hospitality firms, education institutes, on the net outlets, computer software companies and even social media companies, the law enforcement said.
After it is taken from the breached corporations, captured facts is more and more processed before onward sale, to add more value to cyber-criminals hunting to use it for observe-on phishing or fraud.
“The investigation shows that a specific pc code is employed to refine stolen information,” the law enforcement report disclosed.
“Stolen databases are created specially ideal by these types of information refining to strategy especially selected victims for, for instance, phishing, chat tips, lender help desk fraud or id fraud. For case in point, a databases can be filtered on Dutch people today born in the 1940s and 1950s.”
Some parts of this article are sourced from:
www.infosecurity-magazine.com
Dutch Police Arrest 3 Hackers Involved in Massive Data Theft and Extortion Scheme