It’s probably worth checking your credentials, changing your password, and making sure you have two-factor authentication turned on. Now that’s a good habit anyway, but today a little extra. In a massive, global cybercrime case, a large website with illegal data trading has been taken offline. However, the stocking is not over: the data of at least 2 million people are on the street, including 50,000 Dutch accounts.
Genesis Market
The website that was taken offline is called Genesis Market and all kinds of user profiles were put on the market. Other hackers could buy it again and buy all kinds of stuff through people’s digital lives and eventually make the real lives of these people miserable. It is good police work that ensured that Genesis Market is now closed: people have also been arrested in our country. The website is now offline, but the damage has not disappeared.
The team leader of the Rotterdam cybercrime team says that sometimes a social media profile was stolen, but there are also victims who saw 70,000 euros disappear from their investment account. “You can imagine that something like this has an incredible amount of impact. This victim told us that he felt like he was paddling in a large swimming pool alone and had no idea how to get out.”
Microsoft Defender
Unfortunately, the malware that the hackers have spread is so complicated that just changing your password won’t help you enough. It is therefore important to use Microsoft Defender on your PC, the police say. The organization is working with Microsoft and an update has now been added to Defender that ensures that the malicious software is detected and can be removed.
The police have opened a website where you can check whether your data is included in the list of stolen data. You can do that on this website of the police. You enter your e-mail address and then the website checks it with the data that has been stolen to check whether you are there. If that is the case, you will be notified. If not, you won’t hear anything.
If you want to go a little further than just this website, you can also look at Have i been pwned. In any case, it is wise to do that regularly and to ensure that you keep an eye on your accounts. As you can see in the example of the cybercrime team, things can get out of hand.
