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LANDING A BIG FISH —


HYDRA, THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CYBERCRIME FORUM, SHUT DOWN IN POLICE STING


HYDRA MARKET FACILITATED $5 BILLION IN TRANSACTIONS FOR 17 MILLION CUSTOMERS.

Dan Goodin - 4/5/2022, 9:30 PM

Enlarge / Laundering of stolen cryptocurrency was a key service offered by
Hydra.
Getty Images

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Hydra, the world’s biggest cybercrime forum, is no more. Authorities in Germany
have seized servers and other infrastructure used by the sprawling,
billion-dollar enterprise along with a stash of about $25 million in bitcoin.

Hydra had been operating since at least 2015 and had seen a meteoric rise since
then. In 2020, it had annual revenue of more than $1.37 billion, according to a
2021 report jointly published by security firm Flashpoint and blockchain
analysis company Chainalysis. In 2016, the companies said Hydra had a revenue of
just $9.4 million. German authorities said the site had 17 million customers and
more than 19,000 seller accounts registered.


CYBERCRIME BAZAAR

Available exclusively through the Tor network, Hydra was a bazaar that brokered
sales of narcotics, fake documents, cryptocurrency-laundering services, and
other digital goods. Flashpoint and Chainalysis identified 11 core operators but
said the marketplace was so big that it likely was staffed by “several dozen
people, with clearly delineated responsibilities.”

In a post published on Tuesday, Germany’s Central Office for Combating
Cybercrime (known as ZIT) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said they
confiscated Hydra’s server infrastructure and 543 bitcoins, worth about $25
million.

People who attempt to visit the site can't access any of the previously
available pages or resources. Instead, they see the following graphic bearing
the seals of multiple law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Drug
Enforcement Administration. The graphic declares that the site has been shut
down.

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Enlarge
BKA

“The seizures carried out today were preceded by extensive investigations that
have been conducted by the BKA and the ZIT since August 2021 and in which
several US authorities were involved,” authorities wrote in Tuesday’s statement.


SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED

A key service available on Hydra was the Bitcoin Bank Mixer, a service for
obfuscating digital transactions so they’re harder for law enforcement to track.
Hydra, according to blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, facilitated the
laundering of some of the $7 billion in bitcoin stolen from the Bitfinex
exchange in 2016. Elliptic also said the darknet site helped launder money the
Dark Side ransomware group extorted in a hack of Colonial Pipeline last year.

Overall, Hydra has facilitated more than $5 billion in transactions, Elliptic
said. The shuttering of the site leaves a tremendous vacuum in the cybercrime
world, one that no doubt will be filled either by the same operators as they
rebuild their empire or a new enterprising entrant.

“Overall, today’s actions are a significant success for law enforcement,
demonstrating that cybercriminals operating within Russia and surrounding
countries are not immune to enforcement action,” Elliptic researchers wrote.
“Today’s news is likely to have a significant impact on the Russian cybercrime
community, and law enforcement should be praised for such a notable success.”



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Dan Goodin Dan is the Security Editor at Ars Technica, which he joined in 2012
after working for The Register, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, and other
publications.
Email dan.goodin@arstechnica.com // Twitter @dangoodin001

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