Together with the FBI and Europol, the Dutch police have carried out hundreds of raids in seventeen countries. The searches were part of a large, international investigation into online identity theft, under the heading ‘Operation Cookie Monster’, reports the police Wednesday. Seventeen arrests have been made in the Netherlands. It would be people behind the criminal trading website Genesis Market.
On the site, user profiles with login credentials of millions of people were sold to cybercriminals. According to the team leader of the Rotterdam cybercrime team, what made this specific trading site “one of the most dangerous” was that people’s unique digital fingerprints were also for sale here. This allows hackers to steal the online identity of their victims. “For example, it was possible to order and pay for things in web shops in the name of victims or, in certain cases, even to loot entire bank, crypto or investment accounts,” said the team leader.
The FBI shut down the site on Tuesday. The investigation by the FBI, Europol and the Dutch police shows that the user accounts of at least two million people have been sold through the site. Some 50,000 Dutch people were among the victims. According to the Rotterdam team leader, some of them have actually fallen victim to fraud.