Interpol has conducted major chastening on the dark web. In an international police operation, Interpol took down 22,000 IP addresses used for criminal activity.
Interpol communicates in a press release about Operation Synergia II, a global cleanup operation to defuse criminal IP addresses. The operation has certainly not been fruitless: over 22,000 IP addresses that Interpol believes were used for criminal activity were taken offline during the action. In addition, 41 people were also arrested.
The action took place from April to the end of August. Interpol received help from some major security industry players to identify malicious IP addresses. Trend Micro and Kasperksy, among others, helped Interpol identify 30,000 suspicious IP addresses. Of those, 22,000 were taken down. 59 servers and 43 electronic devices belonging to suspects were confiscated for further investigation.
Cybercrime is a global problem that requires a global approach, Interpol stressed in the press release. Interpol worked with national police forces around the world, from Estonia to Mongolia, Hong Kong and Madagascar.
Fighting cybercrime is an eternal cat-and-mouse game, but recently the cats have managed to catch a few mice. The Belgian federal police, in cooperation with Dutch police and the U.S. FBI, recently extracted some harmful infostealers offline.