Law enforcement agencies from all over the world worked together to shut down one of the largest online markets for selling stolen credentials.
Genesis Market, which held the stolen credentials and digital fingerprints of more than 2 million people, was taken offline after 17 countries worked together on an operation called “Operation Cookie Monster.”
Led by the FBI and the Dutch National Police, authorities around the world made 120 arrests, did more than 200 searches, and took close to 100 pieces of “preventive activity.”
Genesis Market traded in digital identities and sold “bots” that had information taken from devices that had been infected by attacks that were meant to harm them. The bots would give criminals access to all the information about a person’s identity, such as cookies, saved logins, and information from forms that are automatically filled out.
The price for each bot could be as low as $0.70 or as high as several hundred dollars for ones with financial information that could be used to get into online bank accounts.
The market gave people a custom browser that looked like the one their victim used. This let the criminals pretend to be the victim, making it look like they were accessing their accounts from the usual place and on the usual computer.
The UK’s National Crime Agency’s Rob Jones says:
“Behind every cyber criminal or fraudster is the technical infrastructure that provides them with the tools to execute their attacks and the means to benefit financially from their offending.
Genesis Market was a prime example of such a service and was one of the most significant platforms on the criminal market. Its removal will be a huge blow to criminals across the globe.”
