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An international coalition of law enforcement agencies announced Thursday that they took down a popular virtual private network service used by cybercriminals and arrested its administrator.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The FBI said in an alert<\/a> that First VPN was so popular that \u201cat least\u201d 25 ransomware gangs used the service to hide their malicious activity. Cybercriminals also relied on the VPN to scan the internet, run botnets, launch distributed denial-of-service<\/a> attacks, and for running scams. First VPN operated servers across 27 different countries, according to the bureau.<\/p>\n Europol said in an announcement<\/a> that, apart from offering anonymous connections, First VPN offered cybercriminals anonymous payments, hidden infrastructure, and other services specifically marketed for criminal hackers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFirst VPN had become deeply embedded in the cybercrime ecosystem, appearing in almost every major cybercrime investigation supported by Europol in recent years,\u201d read the announcement. \u201cCriminals used it to conceal their identities and infrastructure while carrying out ransomware attacks, large-scale fraud, data theft, and other serious offences.\u201d<\/p>\n The service advertised on known cybercrime forums, including at least two Russian-speaking marketplaces, promising criminals protection against being identified.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are for anonymity. We do not store any logs that would allow us or third parties to link an IP address in a specific period of time with a user of our service,\u201d FirstVPN said in one post that TechCrunch has seen. \u201cThe only data we store is e-mail and username, but it is impossible to link a user\u2019s online activity with a specific user of our service.\u201d<\/p>\n Europol, however, said that First VPN users were notified of the shutdown and \u201cinformed that they have been identified.\u201d Investigators said they did this by obtaining the service\u2019s user database and identifying VPN connections, which \u201cexposed thousands of users linked to the cybercrime ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n The international law enforcement agency also said First VPN\u2019s administrator was arrested, dozens of servers \u201cdismantled,\u201d and its infrastructure was disrupted \u2014 all products of an investigation launched in December 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n