Major computer hacking forum shut down by 20 countries, US announces

The Justice Department announced the largest international takedown of an online criminal hackers’ forum, an illicit Web site for the trafficking of tools and talent. Over a 24-hour period, officials said, authorities in the United States and 19 other countries jointly shut down Darkode, the world’s most sophisticated English-language Internet forum for criminal hackers. During Operation Shrouded Horizon, the FBI infiltrated Darkode at high levels and began gathering evidence and intelligence on members, officials said. “Through this operation, we have dismantled a cyber hornets’ nest of criminal hackers which was believed by many, including the hackers themselves, to be impenetrable,” said US Attorney David J. Hickton of the Western District of Pennsylvania, whose office handled the joint investigation with the FBI and the department’s criminal division.

Darkode is a tightly controlled, invitation-only digital bazaar in which a prospective member can gain admission only after posting what amounts to a professional résumé of illegal hacking capabilities, Hickton said. It launched in 2008 and has 250 to 300 members, officials said. The other countries involved in the takedown were Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Latvia, Macedonia, Nigeria, Romania, Serbia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, also took part.