Law enforcement coalition dismantles VPN service used by ransomware gangs

An international coalition of law enforcement agencies took down a popular virtual private network service used by cybercriminals and arrested its administrator. The FBI said First VPN was used by at least 25 ransomware gangs to hide malicious activity. Cybercriminals relied on the service to scan the internet, run botnets, launch distributed denial-of-service attacks, and conduct scams. The service operated servers in 27 countries. Europol said First VPN offered anonymous payments and hidden infrastructure marketed specifically for criminal hackers. The service appeared in almost every major cybercrime investigation supported by Europol in recent years. Investigators obtained the service's user database and notified users that they had been identified. The administrator was arrested and dozens of servers were dismantled in an investigation launched in December 2021.