14 DAY TRIAL // A large law enforcement action carried out this week in the UK in collaboration with government and security industry entities led to the arrest of 57 individuals suspected of various cyber-offenses.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) announced on Friday that 25 separate operations had been completed successfully between March 2 and 6 across England, Scotland and Wales.
Hacker breaching Yahoo systems arrested
The suspects were arrested on charges ranging from conducting DDoS attacks, cyber-fraud and malware development to breaching computer networks belonging to multinational companies and government agencies, exfiltrating information.
At the top of the list is an individual who allegedly contributed to compromising the systems of Yahoo in 2012 and stealing a set of 400,000 email addresses and passwords. He was part of a hacker group called “D33Ds Company,” who released the stolen data to the public domain.
Second on the list is a 23-year-old believed to have broken into the systems of the US Department of Defense and who stole data from the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services global communication system.
Another arrest targeted a 20-year-old who made £15,000 ($22,600 / €20,800) from phishing attacks. He was picked up in Hackney, London, and arrested on March 4 by the Metropolitan Police and NCCU (National Cyber Crime Unit).
The youngest individual arrested is a 16-year-old from the Pudsey area of Leeds, who is charged with directing distributed denial-of-service attacks against about 350 websites.
Cyber-crooks of all ages apprehended
One may think that cybercrime is a game played by the young, but UK law enforcement proves that age is not relevant as officers caught a 58-year-old male suspected of network intrusion and DDoS offences.
The oldest individual apprehended by the police is a 59-year-old woman suspected of cyber-enabled fraud, aimed at stealing loyalty points from retailers located on the main business streets.
During the week-long operation, a web hosting company was served an order to provide information regarding a criminal infrastructure that may be using its systems for malicious purposes.
NCA advises companies to ensure better protection of their servers
The crackdown on cybercrime also included visits to about 60 businesses whose servers had been identified as compromised.
“The compromises could be used to send out spam email, launch attacks against websites or servers, or install phishing websites to gain access to sensitive information,” NCA said in a post on Friday.
“The NCA estimates that organisations acting on this advice could, between them, clean up to half of the phishing attacks that typically originate from the UK each month.”
NCA raid to suspected malware developer's house:
