Four Brits Arrested in LabHost Takedown

Global effort sees 70 addresses searched and 37 suspects arrested.

UK Metropolitan Police led a takedown of the phishing-as-a-service platform, LabHost.

Coordinated at the international level by Europol, a total of 70 addresses were searched across the world, resulting in the arrest of 37 suspects. This includes the arrest of 4 individuals in the United Kingdom linked to the running of the site, including the original developer of the service.

According to Europol, LabHost had become a significant tool for cyber-criminals around the world and for a monthly subscription, the platform provided phishing kits, infrastructure for hosting pages, interactive functionality for directly engaging with victims, and campaign overview services.

The global investigation uncovered at least 40,000 phishing domains linked to LabHost, which had some 10 000 users worldwide. Labhost offered a menu of over 170 fake websites providing convincing phishing pages for its users to choose from.

Phishing Published: 21 April