The National Police in Spain have arrested a suspected 19-year-old hacker in Barcelona, for allegedly stealing and attempting to sell 64 million records obtained from breaches at nine companies.
The teen now faces charges related to involvement in cybercrime, unauthorized access and disclosure of private data, and privacy violations.
“The cybercriminal accessed nine different companies where he obtained millions of private personal records that he later sold online,” reads the police’s announcement.
The police launched an investigation into the cybercriminal in June, after the authorities became aware of breaches at the unnamed firms.
Eventually, the suspect was located in Igualada, Barcelona, and it was confirmed that he held 64,000,000 private records. These records include full names, home addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, DNI numbers, and IBAN codes.
It is unclear how many total individuals were impacted by the breach.
The police mention that the detainee attempted to sell the information on various hacker forums, using six different accounts and five pseudonyms.
The 19-year-old was arrested last week, and during the action, police agents also confiscated computers and cryptocurrency wallets containing funds believed to be from data sales.
Data broker also arrested in Ukraine
In parallel but unrelated news, the cyberpolice in Ukraine have announced the arrest of a 22-year-old cybercriminal who used a custom malware he developed to automatically hack user accounts on social networks and other platforms.
Most of the hacker’s victims were based in the United States and various European countries.
The offender then proceeded to sell access to the compromised accounts, which he boosted using a bot farm of 5,000 accounts, on various hacking forums.
The arrested man now faces up to 15 years in prison for violations of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (Article 361), as well as deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for up to three years.
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