Fixxx
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Hacker forums Cracked, Nulled, MySellIX and StarkRDP are seized by the FBI, Europol and international law enforcement as part of ‘Operation Talent’.
A large ‘‘Operation Talent’ seizure poster was splashed across most of the shady websites by Wednesday afternoon.
The FBI, Europol and multiple other international partners took part in the joint operation, including Australia, France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Romania and Spain, as well as the US Department of Justice and the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Today the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation seized several more prominent Threat Actor forums, vx-underground posted on X, listing the four sites and their domain addresses.
Cracked.io was the first to announce the bust, taking to its Telegram channel ‘Cracked Announcements’ to inform users and followers. At first, Cracked administrators believed the website outage was related to a tech issue, posting that there was “an active issue in our data centre which the staff is working on”.
But by Wednesday afternoon, the jig was up and the website admin admitted to the FBI seizure.
Cracked and Nulled are known hacker forums/marketplaces where cybercriminals often go to exchange cracking tutorials and tools, buy and sell leaked data and just discuss what hackers discuss. MySellIX is an e-commerce platform where threat actors set up online stores to offer, sell, and buy nefarious “goods and services“, while StarkRDP allows cybercriminals to remote host using Windows RDPs and virtual machines (VM). Others on the web further mentioned SellIX, another cross-border e-commerce site, also being seized, as well as RDP.sh, all of which are “allegedly operated by a group of Germans”, one blogger noted. Meantime, a spokesperson for Europol told Reuters in an email Wednesday that “an operation, coordinated by Europol, is currently undergoing” and that more information would be released over the next 24 hours.
Still, not everyone was thrilled with the take-down. Some users who found out about the news on Reddit touted the legitimacy of the hacker forums and, in one thread, questioned why the feds even bothered going after the sites.
But, even with some dissent, it seemed most Reddit users agreed it was good riddance to the scammer sites. User FilthyDoinks, who claimed they’d been visiting these and similar hacking forums since 2007, posted in response, “There’s a lot more to show it was a huge scam…Cracked is full of viruses. Most posts are a honey pot to get other hackers ratted …Trying to catch what they call “script kiddies”. They went on to explain how they were personally hacked after buying something off an advertisement for CrazyRDP, an anonymous offshore hosting site.
Other users lamented over the more recently busted hacker markets, RaidForums in March 2022 and the more recent take-down of its unofficial replacement, BreachForums, the following spring, although the site has again been reincarnated numerous times since. Another user mentioned the irony that one of the more well-known and active hackers, IntelBroker, who was allegedly running Breached before the FBI took it down again last year - and was allegedly responsible for the recent January breach of Hewlett Packard - had just moved to one of the forums. IntelBroker is also infamous for previous high-profile attacks against Cisco, Europol, Apple, AMD, GE and US Cellular.
A large ‘‘Operation Talent’ seizure poster was splashed across most of the shady websites by Wednesday afternoon.
“This website, as well as the information on the customers and victims of the website, has been seized by international law enforcement partners”, the warning said.
The FBI, Europol and multiple other international partners took part in the joint operation, including Australia, France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Romania and Spain, as well as the US Department of Justice and the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Today the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation seized several more prominent Threat Actor forums, vx-underground posted on X, listing the four sites and their domain addresses.
- cracked-dot-io
- starkrdp-dot-io
- nulled-dot-to
- mysellix-dot-io
'A sad day indeed for our community'
Cracked.io was the first to announce the bust, taking to its Telegram channel ‘Cracked Announcements’ to inform users and followers. At first, Cracked administrators believed the website outage was related to a tech issue, posting that there was “an active issue in our data centre which the staff is working on”.
“Services remain offline till the issue is resolved. We will get detailed report later. We can only hope it is resolved without further issue. No estimated time at this moment", they posted around 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
But by Wednesday afternoon, the jig was up and the website admin admitted to the FBI seizure.
“Now that everyone has more clarity on the situation, Cracked.io has been seized under operation talent with specific reasons being undisclosed”, they wrote. “We are still waiting for the official court documentation from the data centre and the domain host. We will inform you guys further on those details once we have it”, they said, concluding that it was “a sad day indeed for our community”.
The interwebs weigh in.
Cracked and Nulled are known hacker forums/marketplaces where cybercriminals often go to exchange cracking tutorials and tools, buy and sell leaked data and just discuss what hackers discuss. MySellIX is an e-commerce platform where threat actors set up online stores to offer, sell, and buy nefarious “goods and services“, while StarkRDP allows cybercriminals to remote host using Windows RDPs and virtual machines (VM). Others on the web further mentioned SellIX, another cross-border e-commerce site, also being seized, as well as RDP.sh, all of which are “allegedly operated by a group of Germans”, one blogger noted. Meantime, a spokesperson for Europol told Reuters in an email Wednesday that “an operation, coordinated by Europol, is currently undergoing” and that more information would be released over the next 24 hours.
Still, not everyone was thrilled with the take-down. Some users who found out about the news on Reddit touted the legitimacy of the hacker forums and, in one thread, questioned why the feds even bothered going after the sites.
“You think a forum that has been up for more than 10 years is a "scam’?” questioned Reddit user Neon Prime.
But, even with some dissent, it seemed most Reddit users agreed it was good riddance to the scammer sites. User FilthyDoinks, who claimed they’d been visiting these and similar hacking forums since 2007, posted in response, “There’s a lot more to show it was a huge scam…Cracked is full of viruses. Most posts are a honey pot to get other hackers ratted …Trying to catch what they call “script kiddies”. They went on to explain how they were personally hacked after buying something off an advertisement for CrazyRDP, an anonymous offshore hosting site.
“Big on there. Huge adverts. Months later the owner hacked everyone and black mailed them. This includes me. Tho it wasn’t my info I’m a hacker I’m not an idiot lol”, they said.
Other users lamented over the more recently busted hacker markets, RaidForums in March 2022 and the more recent take-down of its unofficial replacement, BreachForums, the following spring, although the site has again been reincarnated numerous times since. Another user mentioned the irony that one of the more well-known and active hackers, IntelBroker, who was allegedly running Breached before the FBI took it down again last year - and was allegedly responsible for the recent January breach of Hewlett Packard - had just moved to one of the forums. IntelBroker is also infamous for previous high-profile attacks against Cisco, Europol, Apple, AMD, GE and US Cellular.
"Kinda ironic IntelBroker also just moved to cracked if I recall and they're seized now", Reddit user T0mKatt said.