Europol has announced the dismantling of one of the world's largest hacking platforms, responsible for selling millions of stolen IDs on the internet. The operation resulted in 119 arrests.

The international operation, led by the FBI, targeted the Genesis Market website and involved police from 17 countries, a dozen of them European.

"It's a huge investigation, which was carried out by the FBI, with more than two million victims around the world. It wasn't just the victims' credentials that were stolen, but also their digital footprints. This means that all the stolen data can be misused: from online stores and banks, to digital identity or social networks, everything. The victims are desperate, they don't know how to free their computers from this kind of crime," said Ruben van Wal, cybercrime unit of the Dutch police.

Unlike the services of the so-called "dark web", the Genesis Market site - which, according to the US Treasury Department, was based in Russia - was easily accessible on the internet, protecting itself from law enforcement through an "invitation" system. (euronews)