The hosting company presents itself as bulletproof, advertising full anonymity for users and suggesting they do not cooperate with law enforcement agencies.
Rental of Space
There are numerous hosting companies, both legal and sometimes fraudulent. Hosting companies ensure that websites, applications, and other online services are available on the internet. They essentially rent out digital space.
This investigation concerns a fraudulent provider who rented space to criminals so that further criminal activities could be carried out from this space. This includes, for example, ransomware attacks, botnets, phishing activities, or the distribution of child pornography.
Thousands of Servers
During the operation on November 12, the infrastructure was seized. In total, about 250 physical servers located in data centers in The Hague and Zoetermeer were involved. The seizure of these physical servers also took thousands of virtual servers offline. By seizing the infrastructure, further investigation into the criminal activities on the various servers can be conducted, and the hosting party can no longer be used for criminal purposes.
Follow-up Investigation
‘Our primary focus is to stop the criminal activities that were made possible through this company. This prevents new victimization in the short and long term and disrupts the criminal process.’ Given the large amount of seized data, analysis is currently the highest priority.
