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On January 31, 2025, IT Pro reported that international law enforcement had taken the Cracked and Nulled cybercrime forums offline. Seizure banners appeared on their domains, and the operation reportedly included two arrests, seven property searches and the seizure of 12 domains and associated services. The figures and case details below are those reported by IT Pro at that time; they do not establish the forums’ current status or the cases’ later outcomes.
What happened to Cracked and Nulled?
IT Pro’s January 31, 2025 report described Cracked and Nulled as large online marketplaces and discussion boards associated with stolen credentials and identity documents, hacking tools, malware hosting, fraud and other cybercrime services. According to the report, law enforcement took the sites offline in an international operation and displayed seizure notices on their domains.
The report said Cracked had operated since March 2018 and Nulled since 2016. It characterized Cracked as offering stolen login credentials, hacking tools, malware and servers for hosting stolen data, as well as fraud tools. Nulled was described as offering stolen credentials, identity documents, hacking tools and related criminal materials. These are descriptions in the reporting, not the result of an independent inspection of the forums.
What did authorities reportedly seize?
IT Pro reported that authorities seized 12 domains and associated services. The article also said investigators seized 17 servers and more than 50 electronic devices, and took approximately €300,000 in cash and cryptocurrency. It reported seven property searches and two arrests.
The services named in the article included Sellix, described as a financial processor used by Cracked, and StarkRDP, a hosting service promoted on both forums and run by the same suspects. The report said the operation targeted infrastructure connected to the forums as well as the sites themselves.
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How large were the forums, according to the report?
IT Pro reported more than 10 million users across the two forums. The numbers below come from that January 2025 article; figures attributed there to the U.S. Justice Department were not independently checked against the department’s original records. User and post totals, revenue estimates and alleged victim counts describe different things and should not be treated as directly comparable measurements.
| Forum | Reported scale and activity | Reported financial or victim figures |
|---|---|---|
| Cracked | More than four million users and around 28 million posts, figures attributed by IT Pro to the U.S. Justice Department | Approximately $4 million in revenue and at least 17 million U.S. victims impacted, both attributed by IT Pro to the U.S. Justice Department |
| Nulled | More than five million users and over 43 million posts, as reported by IT Pro | Around $1 million in revenue per year, as reported by IT Pro |
IT Pro separately reported that the forums’ organizers were believed to have earned approximately €1 million in criminal profits. The article also attributed to the Justice Department a statement about one Nulled listing: “One product advertised on Nulled purported to contain the names and social security numbers of 500,000 American citizens.” The statement concerns what a listing purported to contain; it does not establish here that the data was inspected or verified.
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IT Pro quoted Europol describing the forums in the context of cybercrime-as-a-service: “Cybercrime-as-a-service is a growing trend on platforms like Cracked.io and Nulled.to. Cyber criminals offer tools and infrastructure as a service, enabling even less technically-skilled individuals to carry out attacks,” said Europol.
The point of that characterization is that a criminal marketplace can offer tools or infrastructure to users who may not have the expertise to build them. The quotation is attributed to Europol as reproduced by IT Pro; the underlying Europol release was not independently reviewed.
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What was known about arrests and charges at publication?
IT Pro reported that two suspects had been arrested and that charges had been filed against Nulled administrator Lucas Sohn, whom the article described as an Argentinian national living in Spain. It also gave potential maximum penalties. Those are allegations and possible penalties, not convictions or sentences. The article said the cases remained under investigation when it was published on January 31, 2025.
This account is limited to the status reported on that date. It does not establish whether the domains remain offline or what happened in court afterward.
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