{"id":701,"date":"2026-05-24T19:18:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/?p=701"},"modified":"2026-05-24T19:18:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:18:35","slug":"police-boast-of-hacking-vpn-where-criminals-believed-themselves-to-be-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/?p=701","title":{"rendered":"Police boast of hacking VPN where criminals &quot;believed themselves to be safe&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/first-vpn-1152x648-1779474790.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>European law enforcement say they hacked into a VPN (virtual private network) service used for ransomware attacks and other crimes, and identified thousands of users before shutting the VPN down and arresting its administrator.<\/p>\n<p>Europol <a href=\"https:\/\/www.europol.europa.eu\/media-press\/newsroom\/news\/cybercriminal-vpn-used-ransomware-actors-dismantled-in-global-crackdown\">announced yesterday the results of the operation<\/a> against the service, First VPN. The First VPN <a href=\"https:\/\/1vpns.org\/\">website<\/a> now displays a message saying the domain was seized by a joint international law enforcement action.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A VPN service used by cybercriminals to conceal ransomware attacks, data theft, and other serious offenses has been dismantled in an international operation led by France and the Netherlands, with support from Europol and Eurojust,&#8221; the agency said. &#8220;For years, the service, known as \u2018First VPN,&#8217; was promoted on Russian-speaking cybercrime forums as a trusted tool for remaining beyond the reach of law enforcement. It offered users anonymous payments, hidden infrastructure, and services designed specifically for criminal use.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/05\/police-boast-of-hacking-vpn-where-criminals-believed-themselves-to-be-safe\/\">Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/05\/police-boast-of-hacking-vpn-where-criminals-believed-themselves-to-be-safe\/#comments\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/05\/police-boast-of-hacking-vpn-where-criminals-believed-themselves-to-be-safe\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European law enforcement say they hacked into a VPN (virtual private network) service used for ransomware attacks and other crimes, and identified thousands of users before shutting the VPN down [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}