FBI and local police bust illegal servers hosted in Cyprus

In a joint operation with the FBI, police in Cyprus on Thursday busted several servers hosting websites selling personal data of US citizens, according to the director of the Cybercrime Subdivision Andreas Anastasiades.

The special branch of the police was established in September 2007 to combat hacking activities, child pornography, racism and fraud committed via electronic communication and the internet.

“The operation revealed that around 24 million US citizens had their data stolen through the servers we shut down,” Anastasiades told the Cyprus News Agency.

“All the stolen data was being kept on four illegal websites registered to Cypriot IP addresses,” he said, adding that: “Thanks to our cooperation with the FBI, we have now shut down all the servers hosting the illegal websites.”

Anastasiades further detailed that all the servers have been seized by the authorities and that their administrator, a Cypriot national, is fully cooperating with the police in the case.

“The entire operation, which was considered of great importance by the Cyprus police, began six months ago and, although we just achieved a tremendous result, we will continue investigating the case looking for more potential breaches and violations,” the director of the Cybercrime Subdivision said.

The operation was also hailed by the Cyprus police in a post published on Twitter on Thursday, as well as by the US Department of Justice, which announced “the seizure of the SSNDOB Marketplace, a series of websites that operated for years and were used to sell personal information, including the names, dates of birth, and social security numbers belonging to individuals in the United States.”

“The international operation to dismantle and seize this infrastructure is the result of close cooperation with law enforcement authorities in Cyprus and Latvia,” US Attorney Roger Handberg said in a statement published by the US Department of Justice.

“I applaud the extensive work and cooperation by our domestic and international law enforcement partners in bringing a halt to this global scheme.

“The theft and misuse of personal information is not only criminal but can have a catastrophic impact on individuals for years to come,” Handberg concluded.