Operation Cookie Monster may provide relief for besieged businesses and consumers as huge black market hacker site is taken down.

Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Europol, have arrested over 100 people globally as part of a crackdown on the cybercrime forum Genesis Market.

The invitation-only platform has been offering stolen data from over 1.5 million computers worldwide for five years, with over 80 million user accounts' login details being sold. The forum offered digital fingerprints, data collected from computers identifying individual users online. Genesis Market customers pay for subscription-based access to victims’ information. The operation, dubbed "Operation Cookie Monster" by the FBI, is part of a series of international law enforcement stings aimed at coordinated arrests and raids on multiple continents. Collaboration between global law enforcement agencies, AGs such as Merrick Garland and agencies like the FBI and Europol, is crucial for successful operations like this.

Hopefully this will provide some much needed breathing space for consumers and businesses looking to protect themselves from cybersecurity risks such as identity theft, phishing, and ransomware. Unfortunately this is just one battle in the ongoing war against technology threats.

Maintaining a real data governance and security strategy are still your best options.

For more on this story, check out the article on CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/04/politics/genesis-market-fbi-seizure/index.html