Darkode, one of the most sophisticated English-language Internet forums for hackers around the world, has been shut down as part of a collaborative effort between 20 countries, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today.
“Hackers and those who profit from stolen information use underground Internet forums to evade law enforcement and target innocent people around the world,” Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in a statement. “This operation is a great example of what international law enforcement can accomplish when we work closely together to neutralize a global cybercrime marketplace.”
The DOJ also said that criminal charges were filed in the Western District of Pennsylvania against 12 people linked to the password-protected forum. Darkode was a place where hackers and cyber-criminals could buy, sell and trade tools and ideas on how to break into computers and other devices, the department said.
Officials also told the Washington Post that the site had as many as 300 members and was founded in 2008. Hackers had called it “the best malware marketplace on the web,” David J. Hickton, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, told the Post.
Aside from the U.S., the other countries that participated in the effort to shut the site down were Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Latvia, Macedonia, Nigeria, Romania, Serbia, Sweden and the U.K. The DOJ said it was the largest coordinated international effort to stop a cyber-criminal site.