Police boast of hacking VPN where criminals "believed themselves to be safe"
Summary
European police and law enforcement agencies hacked into and shut down a VPN service called First VPN, which was used by cybercriminals to hide illegal activities like ransomware attacks and data theft. Investigators accessed the service’s user data, identified thousands of users, and arrested the VPN’s operator as part of an international operation.Key Facts
- First VPN was a virtual private network service used by cybercriminals to hide their online activities.
- The service was active since 2014 and had servers in 27 countries.
- Authorities began investigating in December 2021 and eventually gained access to user data.
- The VPN promised no logs (no records of user activity) and said it would not cooperate with law enforcement.
- Law enforcement included agencies from France, the Netherlands, Europol, Eurojust, and the FBI.
- The FBI reported that 25 ransomware groups used First VPN to hide their attacks.
- The website of First VPN displayed a message after the shutdown indicating domain seizure by the police.
- Users believed their activities were safe and anonymous, but the police had access to their traffic before the shutdown.
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