AMSTERDAM: Europol, the European police coordinating agency, said on Wednesday that police in Europe, the US and Canada had seized the domains and servers of “DoubleVPN”, a network used by criminals to hide their identity during cyberattacks.
The company’s website on Wednesday showed a warning from law enforcement officials saying they had seized the domain, along with information that DoubleVPN kept about its customers.
Europol said in a statement that customers had received access for US$25 to a VPN, or virtual private network, that allowed hackers to shield their real identity and location while they broke into networks around the world.
“DoubleVPN was heavily advertised on both Russian- and English-speaking underground cybercrime forums as a means to mask the location and identities of ransomware operators and phishing fraudsters,” it said.