The US Department of Justice (DoJ) joined forces with international law enforcement to shut down a few Dark Web cybercrime forums, two operations that impacted underground markets associated with the attacks on millions of victims worldwide.
Pakistani dark web forum shut down
Result? “Cracked” and “nulled” websites are down, along with the Pakistani “Saim Raza” network of dark web forums, also called “HeartSender.” The long-term implications of this operation are not known.
DoJ partnered with international agencies to crack down on cybercrime
First, DoJ with the Dutch National Police captured 39 domains operated by a Pakistani group known as Saim Raza (aka HeartSender). DoJ says Saim Raza has been working since 2020, selling fraud tools and phishing kits to the highest bidder throughout a network of dark websites.
Criminals purchasing the tools are accountable for global business email compromise (BEC) attacks and other dangerous scams- against victims in the US who were robbed of $3 million.
The DoJ believes Saim Raza made these “tools widely available on the open Internet” and “also trained end users on how to use the tools against victims by linking to instructional YouTube videos.”
The group explained, “how to execute schemes using these malicious programs, making them accessible to criminal actors that lacked this technical criminal expertise.” Saim Raza also “advertised its tools as 'fully undetectable' by antispam software,” the agency said in its announcement.
More About "Cracked" & "Nulled" Dark Web Markets
Called “Operation Talent,” the DoJ and Europol worked together to crack down the two dark web marketplaces, linked to cybercrimes against more than 17 million victims.
In a separate action, the DoJ participated in "Operation Talent," a Europol-backed international operation that disrupted the Cracked and Nulled Dark Web marketplaces. Together, the forums have been linked to cybercrimes against at least 17 million US victims.
The cracked marketplace surfaced in 2018, DoJ believes, having 4 million users, making $4 million in revenue, and hosting over 28 million cybercrime ads in its career.
“The Nulled website domain seizure meanwhile came in tandem with the unsealing of charges against one of its administrators, Lucas Sohn, an Argentinian national living in Spain,” says cybersecurity news portal Dark Reading. Nulled has been in the game since 2016, hosted 5 million users, and made $1 million per year, also listing over 43 million ads.