French police together with Europol and Ukrainian authorities, claim to have dismantled a Russian speaking cybercrime forum after arresting its alleged ring leader in Kyiv.
In a statement, Europol described xss.is as “one of the world’s most influential Russian-speaking cybercrime platforms.”
The network had over 50,000 registered users, it claimed, and was “a key marketplace for stolen data, hacking tools and illicit services.” It was also a meeting place and general labour exchange for “some of the most active and dangerous cybercriminal networks…to coordinate, advertise and recruit.”
The operation was kicked off by French police in 2021, and moved into “the operational phase in Ukraine” in 2024. French investigators deployed on the ground in the country, supported by a Europol virtual command post and Ukrainian authorities.
This culminated in the arrest this week of the forum’s alleged administrator, who Europol said “is believed to have played a central role in enabling criminal activity”. This included arbitrating disputes, guaranteeing the security of transactions, and also running a private messaging service for cybercrims, dubbed thesecure.biz.
This resulted in over €7m in “advertising and facilitation fees” over the years, Europol claimed. It said the arrestee was “active in the cybercrime ecosystem for nearly two decades, and maintained close ties to several major threat actors over the years.”
As well as the arrest, authorities seized evidence, and said “seized data will now be analysed to support ongoing investigations across Europe and beyond.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president Zelensky this week appointed Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Restem Umerov as head of the country’s National Cyber Security Coordination Centre.
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