Serious Organised Crime Agency shuts down 36 criminal websites

A joint operation by UK and US crime agencies has dealt a "significant" blow to cyber criminals, potentially saving in excess of £500m in fraud.

The UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) identified 36 websites specialising in selling stolen credit and debit card and online bank account details.

On Wednesday, in a joint operation with the FBI and US Department of Justice, SOCA shut them down.

SOCA said it had recovered over 2.5 million items of personal and financial information built up over the last two years. The UK crime agency has now passed this data on to financial institutions in the UK and overseas so they can help prevent these details being used for further frauds, and two men have been arrested.

Rob Rachwald, security firm Imperva's director of security strategy, said: "This is significant. Although hacktivism has gotten a ton of attention in recent months, for-profit hacking continues at a costly rate and taking these sites offline is a serious blow."

SOCA has been closely involved with global law enforcement agencies to tackle cyber crime. It said over the last two years it has been monitoring the way cyber criminals hand on stolen details to used in frauds.

Working with the FBI, the BKA in Germany, the KLPD in the Netherlands, the Ukraine Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Australian Federal Police, and the Romanian National Police, the UK crime agency said increasingly cyber criminals sell the stolen card and bank account details to other fraudsters using ecommerce-type platforms known as Automated Vending Carts (AVC's).

Lee Miles, SOCA's head of Cyber Operations, said: "This operation is an excellent example of the level of international cooperation being focused on tackling online fraud.

"Our activities have saved business, online retailers and financial institutions potential fraud losses estimated at more than half a billion pounds, and at the same time protected thousands of individuals from the distress caused by being a victim of fraud or identity crime."

Anyone visiting the sites now, such as ccstore.biz and cvvplaza.com will be presented with a message that the site has been seized by law enforcement.