DOJ seizes piracy sites, Italian police dismantle illegal IPTV operation

Officials took down three U.S.-registered domains that distributed copyrighted content and received tens of millions of visits a year.

A trio of domains that allegedly distributed pirated content, including movies, TV shows, video games and other content was seized by the U.S. government as part of a globally coordinated crackdown on copyright infringement, the Justice Department said Friday.

The sites — zamunda.net, arenabg.com and zelka.org — were among the most popular domains in Bulgaria and likely generated significant revenue from ads, officials said. Seizure notices are currently displayed on all three sites warning visitors that illegal distribution of copyrighted works is a crime.

Officials said the U.S.-registered domains received tens of millions of visits a year, including one that often ranked in the top 10 most visited sites in Bulgaria. Multiple Bulgarian agencies assisted with the investigation alongside Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center.

The sites offered visitors thousands of infringed works, resulting in millions of downloads that carry a collective retail value of millions of dollars, prosecutors said. 

The seizures were announced just days after similar actions in Italy where police seized three allegedly illegal IPTV services that distributed pirated content to millions of users. The operation, dubbed “Switch off,” dismantled IT infrastructure the unnamed sites used to distribute content owned by Sky, Dazn, Mediaset, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Paramount, Disney+ and other media companies, officials said.

Italian police said they found evidence linking the IPTV sites to 31 members of a transnational organized crime group and searched the suspects’ residences in Italy. Authorities identified an additional 14 suspects in the United Kingdom, Spain, Romania and Kosovo. 

“The suspects adopted advanced anonymization strategies that have materialized in a series of operations, such as investing in cryptocurrencies, the fictitious heading of assets and the establishment of fictitious companies,” Italian State Police said in a statement.

The actions in Italy were announced about a week before the country hosts the Winter Olympics in Milan, which gets underway Feb. 6.

US, France, and Italian authorities shut down massive deepfake porn site

The website specialized in non-consensual sexual images of famous women, including politicians, first ladies, royalty, journalists, television presenters, athletes, and entertainers, and others.

European authorities crack down on illegal streaming networks

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

• FBI raises alarm over deceptive phishing campaign targeting prominent people

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure