Authorities Seize Domains of Popular Hacking Forums in Major Cybercrime Crackdown

An international law enforcement operation has dismantled the domains associated with various online platforms linked to cybercrime such as Cracked, Nulled, Sellix, and StarkRDP.

The effort has targeted the following domains –

• www.cracked.io
• www.nulled.to
• www.mysellix.io
• www.sellix.io
• www.starkrdp.io

Visitors to these websites are now greeted by a seizure banner that says they were confiscated as part of Operation Talent that involved authorities from Australia, France, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the United States, along with Europol.

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“This website, as well as the information on the customers and victims of the website, has been seized by international law enforcement partners,” the message reads.

Both Nulled and Cracked have been used to peddle various hack tools, such as ScrubCrypt, a malware obfuscation engine that has been observed delivering stealer malware in the past.

The maintainers of Cracked confirmed the development on their Telegram channel, stating they are “still waiting for the official court documentation.”

“A sad day indeed for our community,” they added.

According to Europol, Cracked and Nulled had more than 10 million users in total, acting as underground marketplaces for illegal goods and crimeware solutions, such as stolen data, malware or hacking tools. The websites are estimated to have made €1 million ($1.04 million) in profits.

Concurrent to the takedowns, two suspects have been apprehended, seven properties were searched, and 17 servers and over 50 electronic devices were seized. Approximately €300,000 in cash and cryptocurrency were also appropriated.

“Other associated services were also taken down; including a financial processor named Sellix which was used by Cracked, and a hosting service called StarkRDP, which was promoted on both of the platforms and run by the same suspects,” Europol noted.

Dismantling cybercrime hubs has been a major focus of law enforcement in recent years, hoping to cripple malicious actors looking to profit off their illicit warez and help even less technically-skilled individuals to carry out attacks at scale.

“These two forums also offered AI-based tools and scripts to automatically scan for security vulnerabilities and optimize attacks,” the agency added. “Advanced phishing techniques are frequently developed and shared on these platforms, sometimes employing AI to create more personalised and convincing messages.”

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