[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] and FBI [official website] on Wednesday announced [press release] that a joint effort between law enforcement agencies across 20 countries has led to the seizure and shutdown of the online forum Darkode which provided a marketplace where cybercriminals could buy and sell hacking tools, malicious software, stolen credit card numbers and other illicit items. The website’s administrator and 70 others have been indicted, twelve of them in the US. The forum could only be accessed by invitation, and was password-protected. It was believed to be impenetrable by outsiders. In the release, the agencies underscored the importance of the shutdown:

This is a milestone in our efforts to shut down criminals’ ability to buy, sell, and trade malware, botnets and personally identifiable information used to steal from U.S. citizens and individuals around the world… Cyber criminals should not have a safe haven to shop for the tools of their trade and Operation Shrouded Horizon shows we will do all we can to disrupt their unlawful activities.

The National Crime Agency [official website] of the UK also said [press release] that an address in Scotland has been linked to the forum and has been searched, revealing material that is currently being examined.

Cybercrime [JURIST news archive] continues to be a serious issue around the world. Last month the DOJ unsealed the indictment [JURIST report] of a Turkish man for allegedly organizing three cyber-attacks that led to an estimated $55 million in global losses. In May a former US government employee with the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission was charged [JURIST report] with a four count violation of federal law in connection with an attempted phishing scheme involving Department of Energy employee emails. In October 2014 a court in Denmark convicted [JURIST report] Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, the co-founder of the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB), and an accomplice for stealing Danish public records from the US-based information technology business CSC. From April to August of 2012, Svartholm Warg and his accomplish were alleged to have hacked into the mainframe systems of CSC, which manages some of Denmark’s public records. More than 200,000 records were stolen, including social security numbers and the e-mail addresses and passwords of policemen.