public prosecutor and police have shut down the cybercrime platform RedVDS. This was announced by the Attorney General’s Office Frankfurt am Main and the police headquarters Brandenburg with. The service is deactivated, its server is in Germany confiscated. RedVDS therefore had more than 13,000 users, which the platform operators included Cryptocurrencies paid for so-called virtual desktops. These served as a digital means for criminals to commit fraud online and carry out hacker attacks using phishing emails.
The investigators hope that the almost 70 confiscated servers contain data that could be used to solve many crimes. The attacks that came from RedVDS hit numerous companies in Germany, including in Brandenburg and Hesse. According to experts, the damage caused by such crimes amounts to several hundred million euros. In particular, the RedVDS customer database and any payment information are of interest to the public prosecutor’s office and the police. The operators are suspected of operating a criminal trading platform on the Internet for commercial purposes and as a gang.
According to the information, the investigators’ access took place on Tuesday. It was a joint operation by law enforcement authorities from Germany, the USA and Great Britain. The US technology company Microsoft I cooperated closely and ensured that the RedVDS domain was included in the USA is confiscated. The operation succeeded in breaking up a “central hub” of a fraudulent network and thereby protecting many other potential victims, said Oliver Stepien, President of the Brandenburg Police Headquarters.
