Worldwide investigation shuts down Russian web service used to steal info from over 1 million people

Drew Miller
·2 min read

Pittsburgh, PA (WJET/WFXP)– The United States Attorney’s Office announced Thursday they have seized the internet domains used to create over 40,000 fake websites and steal information from over 1,000,000 people as part of an investigation involving 19 countries.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Eric G. Olshan said warrants to seize the domains and arrest the dozens of administrators and customers of the service were filed in the Western District of PA with arrests happening all over the world with the help of foreign law enforcement agencies along with the United States Secret Service and FBI.

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Warrants obtained by U.S. law enforcement to seize the domains of a spoofing service operated through the Lab-host.ru domain (LabHost), part of a Russian internet company.

LabHost gave its subscribers the services needed to create over 40,000 fake versions of websites for companies like Amazon, Netflix, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Chase Bank to get unsuspecting victims to disclose personal information like names, credit cards, passwords, emails and more.

Operators would then use that personal info to buy things at the victim’s expense, stealing the information of over 1,000,000 people and compromising an estimated 500,000 credit cards.

“Together with our international partners, the Justice Department has disrupted another cybercrime scheme originating from Russia that enabled criminals to steal from over a million victims in the United States and around the world,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

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Authorities were able to seize and shut down the four following domains associated with the application programming interface of LabHost’s phishing and information theft operations:

  • Instapi-1xoa93z90o348fz.co

  • Api2-4hdfix74ks.co

  • Api1-9kcpqcf7olw1w300w3m6.cc

  • Api-d789342789342uy432hjf87df87dfk.cc

U.S. Attorney’s Office said the four LabHost API domains were registered to NameSilo, LLC, a third-party web hosting service based in the United States.

Court records said the domains were property used to violate federal laws on access device fraud, computer fraud, wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering.

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“The theft of personal information—and the financial ruin that often follows—should never be just another cost of using the internet for ordinary citizens,” U.S. Attorney Olshan said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said dozens of administrators and customers are facing charges in 19 countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

The FBI and United States Secret Service conducted the investigation in the United States, and the international investigation was led by the United Kingdom’s London Metropolitan Police, with the support of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre and Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce.

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