Law enforcement agencies in Russia have blocked major websites on the dark web, including the leader in illegally sharing credit card details. These platforms have been “caught” in the context of ongoing investigations into hacker groups and Russian authorities stepping up efforts to break through the cybercriminal ring and arrest oligarch members.

The Russian Interior Ministry has attacked the market for selling stolen credit card data

According to blockchain information provider Elliptic, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD) has shut down four active websites on the dark web. Special, Directorate “K”MVD’s unit, which specializes in fighting computer crime, blocked these sites.

Platforms seized include Sky Fraud Forum, Trump’s Dumps, UAS Store and Ferum Shop. These are the top marketplaces looking for stolen credit card details after the largest marketplace in the field, Unicc, shut down in January.

According to Elliptic estimates, before the shutdown, the sites raised more than $263 million in cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, LTC. Ferum has the largest share with $256 million in bitcoin, or 17% of the stolen credit card data market.

Trump’s Dumps, another website specializing in distributing compromised map data, has made about $4.1 million since it launched in 2017. Both websites are promoted on the Sky Fraud forums. Techniques for using illegal credit card data and money laundering tips are among the main topics here. Directorate “K” left a message in their source code: “Which one of you will be next?”

The source: Soufiane Tahiri

The fourth blocked site, UAS Store, is a platform that provides stolen remote desktop protocol credentials that cyber criminals use to access victims’ accounts from other devices. Violations of this type increased during the Covid-19 pandemic as many employees were forced to work from home. Since the end of 2017, the UAS Store has earned about $3 million in crypto.

Source: Elliptical

Elliptic noted that the latest arrests came after Unicc, the previously leading marketplace for stolen credit card data, and Luxsocks, a marketplace for connected authorizations, became inaccessible in mid-January. These websites were also seized after Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) suspected administrator of Unicc. The researchers claim that the cryptocurrencies collected by the two platforms totaled $372 million.

Meanwhile, MVD has led a Moscow court to arrest six unknown hackers accused of “illegal circulation of funds”. It remains unclear whether this group is connected to the closed dark websites. Last month, at the request of the United States, the FSB and MVD busted the famous ransomware group Revil and arrested 14 suspected members.

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