THE HAGUE: European and US police have taken down one of the world's foremost virtual private networks used by criminals to commit ransomware attacks and other serious cybercrimes, Europol said on Dec 22.

Law officers led by police in Reutlingen in southern Germany, seized the Safe-Inet VPN service on Dec 21, taking down its servers.

"A splash page prepared by Europol was put up online after the domain seizures," the Hague-based agency said.

Active for over a decade "Safe-Inet was being used by some of the world's biggest cybercriminals... responsible for ransomware, E-skimming breaches and other forms of serious cybercrime," Europol said.

"This VPN service was sold at a high price to the criminal underworld as one of the best tools available to avoid law enforcement interception, offering up to five layers of anonymous VPN connections," Europol said.

Investigators also identified some 250 companies spied upon by criminals using Safe-Inet.

The companies "were subsequently warned of an imminent ransomware attack against their systems, allowing them to take measures to protect themselves against such an attack."

Police chiefs hailed the operation, saying cooperation between Europol, France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States led to its success.

"The results show that law enforcement authorities are equally as well-connected as criminals," Reutlingen police chief Udo Vogel said.

 - AFP