Police Arrest 16-Year-Old Suspected of Running KillSec, Seize Ransomware Leak Site and Servers
Spanish police arrested a suspected 16-year-old KillSec administrator; joint operation seized the ransomware group's leak site, 110 TB of data and five servers.
Hamburg-led police with Spain's Guardia Civil and Mossos d'Esquadra arrested a 16-year-old in Alicante suspected of being KillSec's main administrator; two other suspects were arrested in the UK and Romania. Authorities seized the leak site securing at least 110 TB of data, shut down five servers including KillSec's main server, and placed seizure notices on five domains. The investigation covers about 1,000 suspected attacks worldwide with roughly 500 identified as successful, and Spanish police count more than 280 victims. KillSec, which evolved from hacktivism to ransomware-as-a-service in June 2024 with KillSecurity 2.0 and 3.0, exploited software vulnerabilities and bought dark-web credentials to steal and extort data.