Earlier this week, the Department of Justice unsealed indictments against no fewer than 36 individuals alleged to have been involved with the Infraud Organization cybercrime forum, which netted an estimated $530 million in stolen profits from financial institutions, consumers, and other victims worldwide.
A few things immediately stand out about this particular criminal enterprise.
Hiding in plain sight
Unlike many other cybercrime forums that operate under the cloak of anonymity afforded by the dark web, Infraud was readily accessible to anyone with a web browser. To evade prosecution, the Infraud forum was hosted on "bulletproof" servers hosted in Russia (which services were naturally also made available to its forum members).
Resilience of the marketplace
Not only was this forum readily available, it likewise proved to be remarkably durable. Unlike underground dark web marketplaces like Silk Road and AlphaBay, Infraud remained operational for more than seven years, demonstrating that even a well-orchestrated judicial crackdown is still severely hamstrung by the whims and quirks of other sovereign nations.
A highly coordinated criminal enterprise
The days of individual hackers working in isolations have been supplanted by hierarchical, well-orchestrated crime rings that have adopted many of the same organizational principles—such as the division and specialization of labor resources—of the modern enterprise. In fact, we are starting to see many of these syndicates leverage similar sophisticated machine learning technologies that are being employed by legitimate businesses (a topic for another day).
Perhaps most illuminating of all is the breadth of products and services available to the 11,000 Infraud forum members—which even include third-party escrow services to settle transactions between merchants and buyers. It’s the modern day equivalent of a Turkish bazaar with a dizzying array of tools and services available to conduct any manner of criminal activity.
Go here to read about four lessons we can take away from this latest crackdown.
