London police announced on Thursday that they have successfully disrupted a website used by international cyber fraudsters to deceive up to 70,000 British individuals into disclosing sensitive personal information, including bank account details and passwords.
The Metropolitan Police revealed that they had seized the LabHost website, which facilitated over 2,000 criminals in creating phishing sites that led victims to disclose 480,000 bank card numbers and 64,000 PIN numbers.
Since Sunday, law enforcement agencies in the U.K. and abroad have arrested 37 individuals, with an additional 800 individuals being cautioned that their identities are known to the police. Many of these suspects are currently under investigation.
The illicit website, established in 2021, allowed criminals to pay a monthly fee to generate fraudulent websites that mimicked those of legitimate banks, healthcare organizations, or postal services, with the intention of extracting users' personal data.
LabHost provided templates and a step-by-step guide for individuals less proficient in technology to utilize profiles of 170 companies to create approximately 40,000 scam websites.
At the conclusion of the tutorial, a robotic voice would state: 'Stay safe and good spamming.'
Authorities have informed up to 25,000 victims in the U.K. that their data may have been compromised as a result of this cybercrime operation.
