An action day performed in Latvia on 10 October 2025 led to the arrest of five cybercriminals of Latvian nationality and the seizure of infrastructure used to enable crimes against thousands of victims across Europe.
During the operation codenamed ‘SIMCARTEL’, law enforcement arrested two further suspects, took down five servers and seized 1 200 SIM box devices alongside 40 000 active SIM cards. Investigators from Austria, Estonia and Latvia, together with their colleagues at Europol und Eurojust, were able to attribute to the criminal network more than 1 700 individual cyber fraud cases in Austria and 1 500 in Latvia, with a total loss of several million euros. The financial loss in Austria alone amounts to around EUR 4.5 million, as well as EUR 420 000 in Latvia.
Read more…
Source: Europol
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Hackers breach sensitive government and police data in Italy
October 28, 2024
Prosecutors in Milan have uncovered a network of hackers and former law enforcement officials accused of using malware and insider contacts to break into several government databases, including the Interior Ministry. The group allegedly accessed over 800,000 confidential records, even targeting accounts linked to the president’s office. Prosecutors said on Saturday that the operation was allegedly ...
- Bucharest’s District 5 City Hall hit by ransomware attack
October 28, 2024
The District 5 City Hall of Bucharest announced on October 26 that it was the target of a cyber attack that hit its servers. The hackers demanded USD 5 million in ransom, but mayor Cristian Popescu Piedone said he would not pay. “This morning (e.n. October 26), the District 5 City Hall employees reported that the ...
- Russia says ‘unprecedented’ cyber attack hits foreign ministry amid BRICS summit
October 23, 2024
The Russian Foreign Ministry was targeted by a severe cyber attack on Wednesday, coinciding with the major BRICS summit taking place in the country, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. Earlier Zakharova said that the ministry had been targeted by a large-scale distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS). “A massive cyberattack from abroad began this morning on the infrastructure of ...
- Data storage in spotlight of Italian security committee after Intesa breach
October 22, 2024
Italy’s influential parliamentary committee on security will hold a round of hearings on data storage following a major breach at the country’s biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. Intesa Sanpaolo is under investigation by prosecutors in the southern Italian city of Bari after it emerged that the accounts of ...
- Finland’s NBI probes wave of bank cyber attacks
October 18, 2024
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has opened a preliminary probe on a series of cyber attacks on the country’s financial sector. Finnish banks have been targeted in cyber attacks in recent months. In particular, Nordea Bank has been hit by several distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks throughout the autumn. The bank has faced recurring problems ...
- Analysis of the Crypt Ghouls group: continuing the investigation into a series of attacks on Russia
October 18, 2024
Last December, Kaspersky researchers discovered a new group targeting Russian businesses and government agencies with ransomware. Further investigation into this group’s activity suggests a connection to other groups currently targeting Russia. Kaspersky researchers have seen overlaps not only in indicators of compromise and tools, but also tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Moreover, the infrastructure partially overlaps ...

