Seksan Mongkhonkhamsao | Moment | Getty Images A huge fraud website used by thousands of criminals to trick people into handing over personal information such as email addresses, passwords and bank details, has been infiltrated by international police.
Britain’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement Thursday that the website, called LabHost, was used by 2,000 criminals to steal users’ personal details.
Police have so far identified just under 70,000 individual U.K. victims who entered their details onto a website linked to LabHost.
A total of 37 suspects have been arrested so far, according to the Metropolitan Police.
Police have also disrupted those websites and replaced the information on their pages with a message stating that law enforcement has seized the services.
The Metropolitan Police said that up to 25,000 victims in the U.K. have been contacted by police to notify them that their data has been compromised.
“Online fraudsters think they can act with impunity,” Dame Lynne Owens, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, said in a statement Thursday.
The investigation started in June 2022 after police received intelligence about LabHost’s activities from the Cyber Defence Alliance, an intelligence-sharing partnership between banks and law enforcement agencies.
Mongkhonkhamsao, Seksan | Moment | Getty Images.
International police have gained access to a massive fraud website that thousands of criminals use to fool victims into giving up personal information like bank account details, passwords, and email addresses.
In a statement released on Thursday, the British Metropolitan Police claimed that 2,000 thieves had used the website LabHost to obtain the personal information of its users.
As of right now, police have located just under 70,000 distinct U. KK. victims who filled out a form on a website connected to LabHost. As per the Metropolitan Police, 37 individuals have been apprehended thus far.
Additionally, police have interfered with those websites, replacing content on their pages with a notice claiming that law enforcement has taken control of the platforms.
The Metropolitan Police reported that LabHost had acquired over 1 million passwords for websites and other online services, along with 480,000 credit card numbers and 64,000 PIN codes.
According to the Metropolitan Police, there could be up to 25,000 victims in the U. G. have been notified that their data has been compromised by the police.
Can you explain what LabHost is?
According to the police, LabHost was founded in 2021 by a criminal cyber network that used phony websites to trick people into giving up important personally identifiable information, like bank account information and passwords.
View now.
This gave criminals the ability to either create new websites that mimicked well-known brands like banks, healthcare providers, and postal services, or use already-existing sites to exploit victims.
The deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, Dame Lynne Owens, stated in a statement on Thursday that “online fraudsters think they can act with impunity.”.
They firmly feel that these websites are unaccountable to law enforcement and that they can conceal themselves behind digital personas and platforms like LabHost. “.
The operation demonstrated “how law enforcement worldwide can, and will, come together with one another and private sector partners to dismantle international fraud networks at source,” Owens continued. ****.
Together with the police, private organizations such as Trend Micro, Intel 471, Microsoft, The Shadowserver Foundation, and blockchain analysis company Chainalysis collaborated to locate and take down LabHost.
June 2022 saw the beginning of the investigation after police obtained information regarding LabHost’s operations from the Cyber Defence Alliance, a collaboration between banks and law enforcement organizations that shares intelligence.
The National Crime Agency, City of London Police, Europol, regional U.S. organizations, and the Met’s Cyber Crime Unit subsequently merged. KK. authorities to act, in addition to other foreign law enforcement agencies.
