Joker’s Stash, the Largest Underground Carding Marketplace, Shuts Down

Security experts from the FBI and Interpol have recently seized several servers of the large carder site, Joker’s Stash, temporarily disrupted the site’s operation. According to the reports, a coordinated police operation is still ongoing, but security officials have declined to comment further on the matter.

Special sources informed the seizure of domains that appeared at four Joker’s Stash sites:- 

• jstash.bazar
• jstash.lib
• jstash.emc
• jstash.coin

All these sites use top-level domains and are operated by the blockchain company Emercoin. As the records for these domains are stored in the blockchain and cannot be transferred to anyone without the cryptographic signature of the domain owner.

The security experts at the information security company KELA drew the attention of journalists to the fact that the operators of Joker’s Stash have already admitted and published the fact in their portal that the closure of the site was confirmed due to law enforcement.

But, they have also posted that the authorities have seized only external servers, and it will not take long to eliminate the consequences and set up new servers.

Reactions

One of the intel company, Digital Shadows, affirmed that “Taking over the .bazar domain is likely to have little impact on Joker’s Stash, especially since the Joker’s Stash team maintains the multiple versions of the site and Tor links that are still working fine.”

While the reporters at Gemini Advisory asserted that “It’s noteworthy that Joker’s Stash was among the first players who have transferred the dark web services to the blockchain. So, now the cybercriminals do not seem to be worried about the actions of law enforcement agencies.”

Operations

Joker’s Stash has been operating since the fall of 2014 and often issues packages of stolen payment card data that can be used for fraudulent transactions such as CP and CNP. Moreover, it often gets on the pages of the media and in the reports of experts, as huge dumps containing data from millions of bank cards pop up on the site from time to time. 

While as a recent event, you can recall the BIGBADABOOM-III dump related to the compromise of the American Wawa chain or BLAZINGSUN of stores, or a major leak of credit and debit cards issued by banks and financial institutions in South Korea and the United States.

Although the administrator of Joker’s Stash did not yet give many details about the closure of the site, but, it’s very likely that the owners of the portal have surely feared an impending intrusion by the Authorities.

But, this does not mean that the administrator is no longer safe; as the U.S. authorities have charged the cybercriminals many years after the crimes. So, before announcing its “retirement,” Joker’s Stash was considered one of the most lucrative businesses in cyberspace.

Apart from this, the store, Joker’s Stash has managed to accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars as illegal profits.

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