DoubleVPN, a virtual private network service used by some of the most notorious cyber criminals online has been shut down by a joint operation by law enforcement agencies from Europe, the US and Canada.
Spearheaded by the Dutch National Police and coordinated with Europol and Eurojust, the European union’s legal agencies and law enforcement, this takedown was carried out in the framework of EMPACT, the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats.
They seized servers across the world where DoubleVPN had hosted content, and replaced their web domains with a law enforcement splash page.
Using this VPN, criminals anonymously conducted criminal activity and sent information, often stolen private data, to one another.
DoubleVPN was a mainstay of Russian and English hacking and cybercriminal forums, offering underground anonymity to scammers, fraudsters and even ransomware operators.
Law enforcement seized personal information, logs and statistics kept by DoubleVPN about its customers- meaning it’s safe to assume legal action, if not the direct arrest of the criminals active on there is sure to follow.
It has been a busy period for law enforcement agencies and cybercrime. Only last week the Australian federal police and FBI led a global crackdown on cybercrime using a chat app, which managed to trick over 800 suspects into speaking with law enforcement.