Advanced Pakistani cybercrime network HeartSender, also known as Saim Raza, had its operations disrupted by the U.S. Department of Justice and Dutch National Police following the sequestration of its domains and servers as part of "Operation Heart Blocker," reports CyberScoop.
Illicit cybercrime tools, including phishing kits, credential stealers, and cookie grabbers, have been developed and peddled by HeartSender to other threat actors, who amassed more than $3 million using the dismantled operation's tools, according to the Justice Department. Millions of records belonging to HeartSender victims have also been obtained from the threat group's servers.
Such a development — which immediately followed the international law enforcement crackdown on illegal markets and cyber forums that involved the FBI — comes after HeartSender was reported by cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs to be marred by significant security gaps, including malware compromise in their network and misconfiguration that leaked operational data and information belonging to their clients.