On Friday, a 32-year-old Melbourne man was sentenced to 150 hours of community work for purchasing stolen data through Genesis Market before it was seized last year.
AFP arrested the man at his Endeavor Hills home in April 2023. Credit: AFP.
Melbourne County Court announced that the man was given a 12-month community corrections order after pleading guilty to one charge of possessing data with intent to commit computer crime. Australian Federal Police (AFP) statement.
The man from Endeavor Hills One of 10 Genesis Market users arrested in April last year; on the same day, a multinational law enforcement coalition took over the invitation-only .onion domain.
During the execution of the search warrant, AFP seized a laptop and mobile phone that were found to contain approximately 650 compromised credentials.
A subsequent forensic examination of the device revealed that the man had purchased multiple “bots” that were used to capture credentials that could be used in account takeovers and other attacks. .
Genesis Market provided access to over 1.5 million compromised computers at the time of its seizure.
The crackdown, dubbed Operation Cookie Monster, was led by the FBI with support from AFP, New South Wales Police, Victoria Police, Queensland Police, Western Australia Police and several other national police agencies. .
AFP Assistant Cyber Commander Chris Goldmid said in a statement that cybercriminals are often not as anonymous as they think.
“We want to warn those looking to buy or sell stolen information online: We work with our domestic and international law enforcement partners every day to find you and ensure justice is served.” I will bring you to justice.”
In December of last year, A 25-year-old Brisbane man was also found guilty of purchasing data via Genesis Market..
He pleaded guilty to four counts of unauthorized access to restricted data and two counts of possession of data for the purpose of computer crime.
Brisbane District Court sentenced him to two years and six months in prison, but he was released on a $2000 recognizance order and conditioned on five years of good behavior and two years of probation.