France, Netherlands dismantle VPN linked to cybercrime

• France and the Netherlands, with Europol, dismantled "First VPN", a cybercrime service. They took down 33 servers across Europe on May 19-20.
• First VPN concealed cybercriminals' identities during ransomware attacks and data theft. It was promoted on Russian-speaking cybercrime forums.
• Europol stated First VPN was "deeply embedded in the cybercrime ecosystem," used in most major investigations. An administrator was interrogated in Ukraine.

PARIS - France and the Netherlands have dismantled a VPN used by cybercriminals to conceal their identities during ransomware attacks and data theft, EU police agency Europol and a French prosecutor said on May 21.

Luxembourg, Switzerland, Romania, Ukraine and Britain helped in the operation on May 19 and 20 to take down 33 servers linked to the criminal service across Europe, they said.

The virtual private network called “First VPN”, which rerouted connections via a third party to avoid identification, was promoted on Russian-speaking cybercrime forums, Europol said.

It “had become deeply embedded in the cybercrime ecosystem, appearing in almost every major cybercrime investigation supported by Europol in recent years,” the EU agency said.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said teams interrogated the VPN’s main administrator based in Ukraine in the presence of French investigators, after France opened an investigation in 2021 over its users targeting French victims.

Canada, Germany, Romania and the United States supported the investigation, Europol said. AFP