A dozen countries, including France, participated in the operation to dismantle VPNLab, a VPN service used mainly by cybercriminals.
A total of 15 servers were seized, rendering the service unusable. The homepage now displays the message “This domain has been seized”, surrounded by different police logos.
VPNLab was established in 2008. It used OpenVPN protocol with “2048-bit encryption”, which is not huge compared to other VPN services in the market. ProtonVPN, for example, provides 4096-bit RSA encryption.
VPNLab also offered the “Double VPN” feature, which consists of adding a second VPN server after the first. This has the advantage of adding an extra layer of protection. This possibility also exists at NordVPN, for example.
On the other hand, what should have interested cybercriminals was the technical flexibility offered. For example, customers could set their own outgoing IP address, define port forwarding, and use a dedicated server. Which is very handy for carrying out cyberattacks and probably justified the price of over $60 per month.
The reason law enforcement looked into VPNLab was because it was implicated in a series of cyberattacks. It was notably used in 150 ransomware attacks in Germany, with more than 60 million euros in ransoms.
In addition, the operators ostensibly recruited their customers in dark web forums, through advertisements.
“An important aspect of this action is also to show that, while service providers support illegal actions and do not provide information when lawfully requested by law enforcement, these services are not proof of a takedown. », underlines Volker Kluwe, chief of the police of Hanover, in an official statement.
Access to VPNLab’s servers identified more than a hundred companies that were targeted by hackers and were therefore alerted by law enforcement.
This isn’t the first time a VPN service has been taken down. In December 2020, Europol coordinated the dismantling of “Safe-Inet”, aka “Isorg VPN”. In November 2021, it was the turn of “DoubleVPN” to draw the curtain.
Sources : Europol, Ukrainian police