Kelvin Safety cybercrime gang suspect seized by Spanish police

A malicious hacking group, thought to have been working since at the least 2013, might have suffered a major blow after the arrest of a suspected main member by Spanish police late final week.

Spain’s Nationwide Police arrested a Venezuelan man in Alicante on Thursday, within the perception that he’s linked to the Kelvin Safety gang.

In an announcement posted on Telegram, Spanish police described Kelvin Safety as one of many world’s most essential malicious hacking teams, having carried out over 300 assaults in additional than 90 international locations within the final three years.

Victims of the cybercrime gang have included metropolis councils in Madrid, Seville, Badajoz, and the native authorities of Castilla-La Mancha, with assaults sometimes seeing malicious hackers exploit vulnerabilities to entry login credentials and steal confidential info that they later promote via darkish net felony boards.

Kelvin Safety has generally tried to current itself as a penetration testing service, claiming – considerably unconvincingly – that its intention is to warn hacked firms about safety issues on their networks, however then later providing stolen knowledge on the market after breached companies ignore their advances.

It ought to go with out saying {that a} want to reveal safety weaknesses is not any excuse for promoting exfiltrated delicate knowledge on the darkish net that cybercriminals and fraudsters can exploit.

The Italian department of Vodafone is one alleged previous sufferer of the Kelvin Safety gang; in September final yr, the gang provided to promote 310 GB of information they claimed that they had stolen from the telecoms group.

It’s understood that an unnamed multinational vitality firm additionally fell sufferer to the cybercrime gang in the midst of final month, having had a database exfiltrated from its servers containing particulars of over 85,000 purchasers.

The person arrested in Spain final week – who has not been named – was described by police as a central a part of Kelvin Safety’s money-making operation, accountable for laundering funds via cryptocurrency exchanges.

A video launched by Spanish police reveals footage of officers raiding the suspect’s residence for proof earlier than taking the suspect into custody.

The arrested particular person faces costs associated to his membership of a felony group, organisation, cash laundering, and pc misuse.

Extra particulars of the investigation have been shared in a police press launch, the place they describe how final week’s arrest was the newest step in an investigation that started in December 2021.

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