Massive SIM farm cybercrime service disrupted

Operations of a cybercrime-as-a-service platform with a massive SIM farm that resulted in cyber fraud losses exceeding $5.7 million have been dismantled as part of a crackdown by Europol, Eurojust, and law enforcement agencies in Austria, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia, reports The Hacker News.

Aside from disrupting five servers and seizing the gogetsms[.]com and apisim[.]com sites and 1,200 SIM box devices, Operation SIMCARTEL also arrested seven individuals suspected to be part of the cybercrime ring while freezing more than $800,000 in cash and cryptocurrency assets.

More than 49 million online accounts have been established using international phone numbers provided by the CaaS platform, with the accounts then harnessed to facilitate phishing and smishing scams, as well as data extortion, child sexual abuse material distribution, and migrant trafficking, according to Europol. Meanwhile, at least 3,200 individuals around the world were reported by the Latvian State Police to have been impacted by the cybercrime operation.