Security News > 2022 > April > RaidForums hacking forum seized by police, owner arrested
The RaidForums hacker forum, used mainly for trading and selling stolen databases, has been shut down and its domain seized by U.S. law enforcement during Operation TOURNIQUET, an action coordinated by Europol that involved law enforcement agencies in several countries.
According to the DoJ, the marketplace offered for sale more than 10 billion unique records from hundreds of stolen databases that impacted people residing in the U.S. In a separate announcement today, Europol says that RaidForums had more than 500,000 users and "Was considered one of the world's biggest hacking forums".
The European law enforcement agency shared few details in its press release but notes that the people that kept RaidForums running worked as administrators, money launderers, stole and uploaded data, and bought the stolen information.
To make a profit, the forum charged fees for various membership tiers and sold credits that allowed members to access privileged areas of the site or stolen data dumped on the forum.
Threat actors and security researchers first suspected that RaidForums was seized by law enforcement in February when the site began showing a login form on every page.
While many cybercrime forums catered to Russian-speaking threat actors, RaidForums stood out as being the most popular English-speaking hacking forum.