{"id":219230,"date":"2026-05-24T03:20:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T07:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/24\/european-authorities-take-down-prolific-cybercrime-vpn-service\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T03:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T07:20:08","slug":"european-authorities-take-down-prolific-cybercrime-vpn-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/24\/european-authorities-take-down-prolific-cybercrime-vpn-service\/","title":{"rendered":"European authorities take down prolific cybercrime VPN service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/europol-take-down-first-vpn-cybercrime\/\">European authorities take down prolific cybercrime VPN service<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/europol-take-down-first-vpn-cybercrime\/\">https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/europol-take-down-first-vpn-cybercrime\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-21 12:05:35<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"cyberscoop.com\">cyberscoop.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Europol announced the disruption of First VPN, a service widely used by cybercriminals to anonymize their online activities, including data theft, fraud, and ransomware attacks. This significant operation, spearheaded by France and the Netherlands, targeted the VPN provider with substantial support from multiple European nations, including Europol. The authorities arrested the alleged administrator, searched their residence in Ukraine, seized multiple domains, and dismantled 33 servers linked to the VPN, obtaining its user database. Notably, the intelligence generated from the operation identified thousands of users tied to cybercrime, providing new leads for investigations connected to ransomware and fraud schemes. The shutdown of First VPN has dismantled a crucial tool that cybercriminals relied on for anonymity, significantly aiding ongoing international investigations and law enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Points:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The disruption of First VPN, a prominent VPN service used by cybercriminals, was led by France, the Netherlands, and nine other European countries.<\/li>\n<li>The operation uncovered thousands of users involved in cybercrime and provided new leads in ongoing investigations.<\/li>\n<li>Europol emphasized the significance of First VPN in facilitating major cybercrime operations, which has now been dismantled.<\/li>\n<li>The arrest of the First VPN alleged administrator and seizure of related servers, domains, and user data represent a major blow to cybercriminal anonymity.<\/li>\n<li>The outcomes from the operation are supporting 21 additional ongoing inquiries worldwide, highlighting its global impact on cybercrime.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European authorities take down prolific cybercrime VPN service https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/europol-take-down-first-vpn-cybercrime\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-21 12:05:35 Source Domain:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2022\/06\/GettyImages-1253014959.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219232,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219230\/revisions\/219232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}