14 DAY TRIAL // The Spanish National Police, backed by Europol’s European Cybercrime Center (EC3), have arrested two Ukrainian nationals on suspicion of selling access to 21,000 hacked computer servers to other cybercriminals.
The suspects were arrested on July 9 in Madrid. When the police raided their home, one of them was running virtual machines and chatting with other cybercriminals.
Several electronic devices were seized, along with around €50,000 ($68,000) in cash. The money was allegedly obtained from a sophisticated money laundering facility, which processed around €10,000 ($13,500) per day, and a police ransomware scheme.
The 21,000 hijacked servers belong to organizations located in 80 countries. It’s believed that the cybercriminals compromised them via the remote desktop protocol (RDP). Europol says that the two Ukrainians had around 450 customers who could choose the location of the servers they bought access to.
The arrest of the two Ukrainians is part of an operation called Operation Ransom II.