Cybercrime has seen a staggering rise over recent years, with past estimates putting it at a worldwide cost of $10.5 trillion in 2025. Thankfully, today the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and Europol put the kibosh on the LeakBase database, a hacker forum operating across 14 different countries.
According to the press releases, the authorities seized "users’ accounts, posts, credit details, private messages, and IP logs" of 142,000 members and their 215,000 messages. LeakBase was apparently a public forum in the English language, both factors that easily attract buyers and sellers of cybercrime software and stolen accounts.
The website now displays a large banner informing any visitors of the seizure, which took place between March 3 and 4 in a coordinated effort at Europol's headquarters in The Hague. According to the DoJ, LeakBase was home to data retrieved from multiple high-profile attacks, including "hundreds of millions of account credentials". Seized data also included "credit and debit card numbers, banking account and routing information [...] sensitive business and personally identifiable information."
The seizure wasn't just performed in cyberspace, too. Europol says that the operation included multiple arrests, house searches, and "knock-and-talk" interventions. The entire collective performed 100 policing actions targeting 37 of the most prolific users on the platform. Participating countries included the United States, eight member-states of Europol, as well as Australia, Canada, Malaysia, the UK, and Kosovo.
Cybercrime as a whole is accelerating, and the $10.5 trillion estimate for the 2025 cost is a staggering figure, ranking #3 in the world economy by GDP if it were considered a country, right behind the United States and China. Efforts by authorities around the globe are likewise speeding up, but they're playing a whack-a-mole game that's only likely to get harder by the day as AI attack automation becomes commonplace.
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