Police help FBI shut down online personal data sale

Cyprus Police confiscated servers hosting websites that sold hacked personal data of American citizens in a joint operation with the FBI. 

Head of the Cyber Crime Unit, Andreas Anastasiades, told CNA: “The FBI is investigating the theft of personal data and illegal access to electronic data of 24 million US citizens stolen and offered for sale for various purposes to other services or individuals.”

“This data was stored on four websites in Cyprus, where, in cooperation with the FBI and after an investigation, it was possible to stop these services. 

“The sale of this data is no longer available, and all the necessary evidence has been confiscated”.

Servers located in Cyprus hosting these websites were confiscated. According to Anastasiades, the server administrator, a resident of Cyprus, fully cooperated with the police.

“The investigation lasted about six months for the Cypriot Police and is considered of great importance…the case is still ongoing until it is fully solved.”

In a tweet, the Cyprus Police said they made a “significant contribution” to the FBI’s international operation to take offline a marketplace that sold the names, social security numbers and birth dates of millions of Americans. 

The US Attorney’s Office statement said that the SSNDOB market, consisting of a series of websites selling more than 20 million social security numbers, has been seized and dismantled.

The SSNDOB Marketplace listed the personal information of approximately 24 million individuals in the United States, generating more than $19 mln in sales revenue.

“The international operation to dismantle and seize this infrastructure is the result of close cooperation with law enforcement authorities in Cyprus and Latvia,” the US Attorney’s Office said.

“On June 7, 2022, seizure orders were executed against the domain names of the SSNDOB Marketplace (ssndob.ws, ssndob.vip, ssndob.club, and blackjob.biz), effectively ceasing the website’s operation.