Two Romanians suspected of running services for encrypting malware and testing it against antivirus engines were arrested last week.
Allegedly the operators of the CyberSeal and Dataprotector crypting services, as well as of the Cyberscan service, the duo is said to have provided aid to more than 1,560 criminals.
The services, Europol says, were used for crypting a variety of malware types, including information stealers, Remote Access Trojans (RATs), and ransomware families.
The illegal services were being offered on underground portals, at prices ranging between $40 and $300, depending on license conditions. The two provided constant updates and support to their customers.
Prices for the counter antivirus service, which helped cybercriminals test the detection rates for their malware samples until they could ensure the malware was fully undetectable (FUD), ranged from $7 to $40.
Four houses were searched in Bucharest and Craiova as part of an operation conducted by Romanian police in cooperation with the FBI, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos), and Europol.
In addition to arresting the two, law enforcement took down backend infrastructure in Romania, Norway and the United States to disrupt the criminal services.
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