25 operations were carried out UK wide by the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) as well as specialist officers from regional squads and the Met. Just one of the operations saw the arrest of 25 people and 56 were arrested in total.
A Lizard Squad member, money launderers, various flavours of online fraudsters were also among the 56 arrested cyber baddies: a veritable cornucopia of internet crooks. As reported by the BBC, one of the arrestees is suspected of having been involved in the infamous Yahoo hack attack of 2012, another is believed to have been involved in breaking into the US defence department in June 2014.
“NOT beyond our reach…”
Mark James, ESET security specialist, is pleased to see that a strong message is being sent by law enforcement.
“I think the deed itself will have a good impact. It makes the statement that “we will catch you, you are NOT beyond our reach and we won’t give up.” Hats off to all involved.
“Hopefully it will send a clear message that if you choose cybercrime as your way to make money you will be caught.”
It may well be a drop in the ocean, considering the relative ease of setting up a phishing scheme for example, but it’s all about the message and creating a hostile environment which wards off all but the most determined cyber crims.
“Generate other leads…”
Mark is keen to point out that although all of the criminals in these raids were in the UK, the repercussions will be felt globally.
“Much as the act of cybercrime is worldwide and can be done from anywhere then the message that some were caught is worldwide as well.
“Any number of people caught and prosecuted will help the cause, stopping cybercrime has to be a very high priority in our current time and this proves we are doing something right.”
Mark also points out that although the numbers may seem small it could help lead into even larger raids, further developing that hostile environment for hackers.
“The good thing of course is that it’s likely to generate other leads and help the authorities capture even more people from the information they can obtain from the hardware of the criminals.”
Fighting the Good Fight
It seems as though we’ve seen almost as many arrests and raids recently as we have large profile hacks. Well not quite, but it’s certainly getting there.
Lest we forget that the Pirate Bay was knocked offline during a raid by Swedish police and is struggling to stay alive.
The Dark Net also took a bit of a hit when Europol and a large joint taskforce targeted the source of several illegal online marketplaces.
Last but certainly not least German Police has very recently seized $4.25million worth of Dark Net drugs. Even though the Wired article points out that it’s a fraction of the total amount out there, it’s still an potent statement of intent.
Mark wants to emphasise that “it has to be down to cooperation from all corners of the earth with all nations combining their information and not allowing these criminals to continue.
“The bad guys know that international boundary’s cause severe problems for crime agencies to catch them and removing those boundaries is key in moving forward.”
Hopefully we are going to see plenty more raids and arrests in the future.
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What do you think of the recent raids?