Safe-Inet: A “Criminal” VPN Service Shut Down By Officials!
A Virtual Private Network is supposed to be a service that safeguards your data. But, what if a VPN service begins to do the exact opposite and becomes an accomplice of the criminal folks? That’s exactly what was discovered recently when the FBI and Interpol in a joint operation, shut down a VPN service known as Safe-Inet or Insorg.
The Safe-Inet service was brought to a halt with its infrastructure seized in various locations including Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, and the US.
Many illegitimate services such as this one, are often used by criminals to hide their activities and hence escape the shackles of the law. They become no less than co-conspirators by enabling heinous crimes.
A VPN Service For The Criminals By Criminals
Apparently, Safe-Inet was customized for criminal activities. It wasn’t just advertised on forums frequented by the criminals but actually used for activities such as card skimming, ransomware, and account hijacking. Safe Inet’s servers offered and provided “bullet-proof” hosting, that enabled cybercriminals to host phishing pages, ransomware drop sites, and similar services alongside VPN encryption.
The company had been operating for 10 years before being taken down and offered cybercriminals access to their infrastructure for cyber-crime activities without being tracked.
After the servers were taken down and the domain seized, a splash page put was displayed by the law enforcement authorities:
The Difference Between Privacy-Focused No-Logs VPNs & Criminal VPNs
Even though Safe Intet was shut down because of its illegitimate practices and refusal to share user logs, it should be noted that most VPN services keep no logs for the sake of their users’ privacy and to protect from authoritarian governments such as Ivacy VPN. Only an active partnership with the criminal-minds such as that of the aforementioned VPN would warrant action on the part of the FBI or the department of justice.
