U.S. law enforcement has seized the primary domain of Virtualine, a bulletproof hosting service that operated under multiple aliases including Secury, Massgod, and Omegatech. The service advertised protection from legal complaints and law enforcement requests while facilitating illegal activities such as phishing, spamming, carding, and ransomware operations. The FBI conducted the seizure following an investigation involving law enforcement agencies from Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, along with private cybersecurity partners. Authorities discovered that despite claiming to prohibit child exploitation content, Virtualine knowingly hosted forums promoting child abuse material and ignored repeated notices from law enforcement and child protection organizations.
Virtualine accepted Bitcoin payments directly from customers, enabling money laundering for cybercriminals. Blockchain analysis linked the service’s payment addresses to ransomware operators, data thieves, and illicit marketplaces, with a Russian drug marketplace accounting for approximately 44 percent of financial flows. Dutch police seized dozens of physical servers in Limburg and recovered data from over 3,000 Virtualine customers, with follow-up investigations ongoing. Authorities report that the platform facilitated cybercrime since at least 2022, though some network infrastructure remains partially operational with significantly reduced connectivity.
Source: Read the full story at BleepingComputer
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