FBI and international authorities arrest 60 hackers connected to secret online bazaar for cyber criminals

The FBI, along with its counterparts in other countries, has recently arrested more than 60 people allegedly part of the secret online forum called Darkode.  

Media groups from Brazil reported that Darkode has been under investigation as early as March this year. Authorities such as the FBI, Europol, and Brazil's Federal Police have been tracking down these hackers. The operations carried out by the authorities has lead to 62 arrests in 18 different countries, including UK Germany, Bosnia, Romania, India, Sweden Colombia, Denmark, and Serbia.

Darkode.com is a secretive underground forum that serves as a bazaar for cybercriminals carrying out shady activities such as spam services, exploit kits, stealthy botnets, ransomware programs and more. Darkode is a reliable source of information about the zero-days, which are highly valuable threats that can exploit unknown software vulnerabilities. These threats are used by attackers even before the developer realises that there are vulnerabilities in the software.

According to a Brazilian online news site, Federal Police arrested hackers in Goiânia and Belo Horizonte. This is considered as the biggest international cooperative operation of the cyber area. Darkode, The report described Darkode as an international forum created in 2007 to bring together the largest most skilled cyber criminal hackers. The users who wants to be part of the site are tested by the other members to determine if they have the adequate technical skills.

A notification in Darkode's website, posted by the FBI and the Department of Justice that the domain and website has been seized by the FBI, Pittsburgh Field Office and the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania as part of a joint law enforcement operation by the FBI and international law enforcement agencies acting through Europol.