Yesterday, Ukrainian authorities arrested the suspected administrator of a notorious Russian-language crime forum, XSS.is.
In an X post, the Paris Prosecutor's Office announced that Ukrainian authorities detained the suspect after an investigation conducted with French authorities' and Europol's help that began almost exactly four years ago.
XSS has been "one of the main hubs of global cybercrime" since 2013, French authorities said, allowing "the sale of malware, access to compromised systems, stolen data, and ransomware-related services."
Used by criminals globally to cover up illicit activity, the forum was shut down soon after the admin's arrest.
The suspected admin has so far not been named. But police said the suspect was identified after authorities began intercepting encrypted chats sent on a Jabber messaging server that members used, "thesecure.biz."
Surveilling chats between forum users, the government eventually intercepted a message that tipped authorities off to the alleged admin's identity back in September. Soon after, they deployed agents to find the admin, and ultimately, it took months for Ukrainian authorities to make the arrest, with both French and Europol authorities present.
"The intercepted messages revealed numerous illicit activities related to cybercrime and ransomware, and established that they generated at least $7 million in profits," a translation of the press release said.