Agents of the National Police have arrested the alleged leader of the financial apparatus of one of the most important hacktivist groups in the world: Kelvin Security, an organization that has carried out numerous attacks against institutions and companies around the world.
The arrested person is charged with the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, revelation of secrets, computer damage and money laundering. On the morning of this Saturday, December 9, the prisoner was placed at the disposal of the head of the Court of Instruction number 7 of Alicante on guard duty, who has ordered his entry into prison.
The police operation, which has been carried out by agents from the General Information Commission (CGI), has had the collaboration of the Alicante Provincial Information Brigade and has been coordinated by the Alicante Prosecutor’s Office. All this under the direction of the Court of Instruction number 5 of Alicante.
The investigation began at the beginning of December 2021, when the agents became aware of sophisticated cyber attacks suffered on the computer systems of the Getafe (Madrid) and Camas (Seville) City Councils. Subsequently, the City Council of La Haba (Badajoz) and the Government of Castilla-La Mancha were also attacked.
After various efforts to identify the authors, cyber investigation experts detected that the computer attacks were claimed by the Kelvin Security group, through clandestine cybercriminal forums accessed through the Dark Web. In them, exfiltrated confidential data was sold, being especially valuable to actors linked to third countries present in these forums.
After that, the agents verified how the group took advantage of vulnerabilities in web pages, software and information storage services of institutions and entities belonging to strategic sectors around the world to carry out a massive extraction of sensitive information from internal data, clients, workers. and users.
Kelvin Security
Kelvin Security, whose first records on the network date back to 2013, has profited from the sale of all this illicitly obtained information, having attacked more than 300 organizations in more than 90 countries around the world in the last three years. In addition to Spain, its objectives include countries such as the United States, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Chile and Japan.
The most recent attack was on the headquarters of an energy company, in November of this year. In this case, they managed to exfiltrate a database with confidential information of more than 85,000 clients of the multinational.
As a result of the investigation, specialists in the fight against cyber threats managed to identify the now detained person, the main person responsible for the money laundering of the money obtained from the criminal activities of the hacktivist group. He is a Venezuelan citizen who operated mainly through the cryptocurrency exchange.
During the arrest, a search of the detainee’s home was carried out, where numerous effects and technical supports were seized and are being analyzed by cyber investigators.
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