The Department of Justice has seized the SSNDOB marketplace, which is a series of websites used for years to sell personal information of 24 million U.S. citizens, including their names, dates of birth, passwords, credit card numbers and social security numbers.
U.S. authorities worked as part of an international operation – in coordination with law enforcement in Cyprus and Latvia – to dismantle and seize the infrastructure used by the SSNDOB marketplace, including domain names ssndob[.]ws, ssndob[.]vip, ssndob[.]club and blackjob[.]biz.
“Identity theft can have a devastating impact on a victim’s long-term emotional and financial health,” said Darrell Waldon, special agent in charge with the IRS-CI Washington, D.C. Field Office in a Tuesday statement. “Taking down the SSNDOB website disrupted ID theft criminals and helped millions of Americans whose personal information was compromised.”
When they used SSNDOB, buyers were able to browse available PII by country in order to search for specific names and characteristics. The DoJ said the SSNDOB administrators would advertise the website services on darkweb cybercriminal forums and provide customer support functions to website users. The administrators of the site also used various tactics to thwart detection of their activities, including using online monikors, maintaining their servers in various countries and requiring buyers to use bitcoin and other digital payment methods. Overall, the series of…
