САЩ. and European law enforcement agencies have launched a joint operation, successfully taking down the notorious cybercrime forum LeakBase and seizing its core database. The forum was described by prosecutors as “one of the world’s largest online communication platforms for cybercriminals,” primarily used for sharing stolen passwords and various hacking tools.
Earlier this week, law enforcement successfully seized the site. According to disclosures, the scale of LeakBase’s database is staggering, с над 142,000 registered members and more than 215,000 private messages exchanged between members.
According to authorities, LeakBase had been operating since 2021, maintaining a vast archive of hacked databases over a long period. This archive contained hundreds of millions of sensitive data points, including account passwords, credit card information, bank account numbers, and routing numbers, indicating an extremely wide scope of impact.
This operation represents the latest powerful strike by law enforcement against platforms trading in stolen credentials. Such platforms are a major source behind the recent surge in account breaches and the large-scale theft of cryptocurrency and sensitive data.
Europol issued a statement noting that approximately 100 measures were taken in this global coordinated law enforcement action, with a particular focus on investigating the 37 most active users on the forum. Earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized the site’s domain, redirecting it to FBI-controlled name servers, thereby shutting down LeakBase.
The LeakBase site now displays a seizure notice, explicitly informing users that the forum’s content, private messages, and IP address logs have all been preserved by law enforcement. According to tech media outlet The Record, Brett Leatherman, an FBI official in charge of cyber affairs, revealed that the investigation has led to over 13 arrests, as well as searches and interviews with 33 suspects. Освен това, investigators have obtained the forum’s complete database information.