PARIS (AP) — Ukrainian security services backed by French police have arrested the suspected administrator of a Russian-language cybercrime platform that served as a marketplace for stolen data, hacking tools and illicit services, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday.
The suspect arrested in Kyiv on Tuesday is alleged to have made more than 7 million euros (US$8.2 million) by administrating the cybercrime platform xss.is and with an online private messaging service for cybercriminals, the European Union’s police agency Europol said.
Xss.is had more than 50,000 registered users and “has long been a central platform for some of the most active and dangerous cybercriminal networks, used to coordinate, advertise and recruit,” Europol said.
The suspected administrator also “arbitrated disputes between criminals and guaranteed the security of transactions,” it said.
The French-led investigation was launched in 2021, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. It called xss.is “one of the main hubs for global cybercrime” and said it facilitated “the sale of malware, access to compromised systems, stolen data, and ransomware-related services” and also operated an encrypted messaging server that enabled cybercriminals to communicate anonymously.
It said wiretaps helped identify the suspected administrator and his arrest by Ukrainian authorities.
