CyberCriminals Take Dagger to the Heart: LibertyReserve Takedown
Cybercriminals rely on an underground economy to be able to purchase and sell stolen credit cards, identities, malware, and other tools, and also relies on the same economy to be able to launder their profits from money mule and reshipping mule operations. The primary online resource that protects cybercriminals identities and allows them to operate freely is a site called LibertyReserve.com. The site is owned and operated by some shady Russian criminals and has been operating for the past several years. Finally, the United States Justice Department has moved in, seized the domain, stopped temporarily all of the transactions through the site, and have issued indictments for the operators of the site. This is a huge dagger to the underground economy.
USAO for Southern District of NY just annoucned a press conference this afternoon on the Liberty Reserve matter. Indictment docs coming.
— briankrebs (@briankrebs) May 28, 2013
LibertyReserve/Budovsky indictment here ow.ly/lsDl0 (PDF) Looks like I may have been right about the other 5 exchanger domains
— briankrebs (@briankrebs) May 28, 2013
USG: Liberty Reserve “deliberately attracted/maintained a customer base of criminals by making financial activity anonymous/untraceable”
— briankrebs (@briankrebs) May 28, 2013
U.S. government seizes libertyreserve.com, dubs it “financial hub of cybercrime world.” ow.ly/ltb0q
— briankrebs (@briankrebs) May 28, 2013
Right now the domain is featuring this image at LibertyReserve.com
Cyberthieves will likely turn to other online currencies like bitcoin for transactions, but such a move will take a while to take effect. This takedown won’t stop identity and credit card theft, but for a while, those efforts will be almost worthless. Kudos to the DOJ on this operation.
