Law enforcement intercepted VPN traffic, seized domains, and arrested its operator.

Law enforcement intercepted VPN traffic, seized domains, and arrested its operator.

Europol announced yesterday the results of the operation against the service, First VPN. The First VPN website now displays a message saying the domain was seized by a joint international law enforcement action.

“A VPN service used by cybercriminals to conceal ransomware attacks, data theft, and other serious offenses has been dismantled in an international operation led by France and the Netherlands, with support from Europol and Eurojust,” the agency said. “For years, the service, known as ‘First VPN,’ was promoted on Russian-speaking cybercrime forums as a trusted tool for remaining beyond the reach of law enforcement. It offered users anonymous payments, hidden infrastructure, and services designed specifically for criminal use.”

  • calcopiritus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 hour ago

    Why shut it down though? Just take over it and intercept the traffic. If you shut it down, a new one will just be made.

  • yesman@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    6 hours ago

    This is just more proof that law enforcement doesn’t need age verification or backdoors to fight crime.

  • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    591·
    14 hours ago

    To those fretting: there is a wide margin between a legit VPN service and these guys. Interpol are not coming for your paid run-of-the-mill VPN provider.

    I hadn’t even heard of 1VPN prior to this story, and the reason is that they advertise almost exclusively on cybercrime forums - mentioned multiple times in the article.

    The administration/owner of this VPN service explicitly tailored their business to enabling cybercrime. That’s real stupid, because it means you become a legitimate law enforcement target as an accomplice with prior knowledge / facilitator to a crime, and generally explicitly waives your immunity rights as a service provider under legal frameworks like EU DSA.

    Dutch police stressed that this particular VPN service “was considered criminal, because it specifically targeted cyber criminals.”

    First VPN “mainly advertised on the cyber criminal forums known to the police and thus expressly approached cyber criminals as potential clients,” Dutch police said. “The website of the service also stated that any cooperation with the judiciary would be denied, that the service was not subject to any jurisdiction".

    Lol. There is no country on earth that is not subject to any jurisdiction - as the VPN provider and users found out.

    Any legit VPN has a thorough ToS/policy to explain acceptable and unacceptable use of their systems (including any illlegal use like crimes/DDOS/etc), and to cover the legal jurisdiction they fall under and what they do when recieving legal court orders.

    If anything, be pissed that this intentional cybercrime service tarnished the concept of VPNs a little, not that they were pursued and busted. Your legit provider is safe.