A malicious hacking group, thought to have been working since not less than 2013, could have suffered a big 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 related to the Kelvin Safety gang.

In an announcement posted on Telegram, Spanish police described Kelvin Safety as one of many world’s most vital 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 usually seeing malicious hackers exploit vulnerabilities to entry login credentials and steal confidential data that they later promote by way of darkish internet prison boards.

Kelvin Safety has typically 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 information on the market after breached companies ignore their advances.

It ought to go with out saying {that a} want to reveal safety weaknesses isn’t any excuse for promoting exfiltrated delicate information on the darkish internet 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 supplied to promote 310 GB of information they claimed that they had stolen from the telecoms group.

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

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, liable for laundering funds by way of cryptocurrency exchanges.

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

The arrested particular person faces prices associated to his membership of a prison group, organisation, cash laundering, and laptop 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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