- Authorities from the U.S. and Poland partnered to dismantle the notorious bulletproof hosting platform, Lolek Hosted.
- The move comes amid efforts from U.S. regulators to disrupt bulletproof hosting services accounting for a significant number of cybercrime cases.
A law enforcement collaboration between Poland and the U.S. shut down a popular bulletproof hosting platform known as Lolek Hosted in a continued effort to limit anonymity to cyber criminals. The website for the platform now shows the message: “This domain has been seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service — Criminal Investigation as part of a coordinated law enforcement action taken against Lolek Hosted.
The move was a joint action by the U.S. State Attorney’s office, the Department of Justice, the Polish Regional Prosecutors Office, and the Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime in Poland. An IRS spokesperson confirmed the seizure.
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Lolek is a well-known bulletproof hosting service with a data center in Europe. Although its headquarters are in the U.K., law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have recently increased their activities against such entities, setting severe penalties and imprisoning responsible individuals.
For instance, Russian national Aleksandr Grichishkin was imprisoned for five years in 2021 for setting up a bulletproof hosting firm. Also, in June this year, the Justice Department set a 3-year federal prison sentence for Mihai Ionut for running PowerHost bulletproof hosting service.
Bulletproof hosting services such as Lolek largely turn a blind eye toward the actions of their users on their platforms. They also provide services such as renting domains, servers, and IP addresses, which are often used by cybercriminals to spread malware, conduct cyberattacks and fraud in anonymity. Despite these actions, cybercrime through bulletproof hosting services has continued to increase over the years. Consequently, actions against service providers such as Lolek are expected to gain momentum for the foreseeable future.
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