Finance
Police take down massive fraud website LabHost
Illustration of a cybercriminal using a computer.
Seksan Mongkhonkhamsao | Moment | Getty Images
A huge fraud website used by thousands of criminals to trick people into handing over personal information such as email addresses, passwords, and bank details, has been infiltrated by international police.
Britain’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement Thursday that the website, called LabHost, was used by 2,000 criminals to steal users’ personal details.
Police have so far identified just under 70,000 individual U.K. victims who entered their details into one of LabHost’s websites. A total of 37 suspects have been arrested so far, according to the Metropolitan Police.
Police have also disrupted LabHost’s websites and replaced the information on its pages with a message stating that law enforcement has seized the services.
LabHost obtained 480,000 credit card numbers, 64,000 PIN codes, as well as more than 1 million passwords used for websites and other online services, the Metropolitan Police said.
The Metropolitan Police said that up to 25,000 victims in the U.K. have been contacted by police to notify them that their data has been compromised.
Who are LabHost?
Police say that LabHost was set up in 2021 by a criminal cyber network which sought to scam victims out of key personally identifiable information, such as bank details and passwords, by creating fake websites.
Criminals were able to use it to exploit victims through existing sites, or create new websites mimicking those of trusted brands including banks, health care providers, and postal services.
“Online fraudsters think they can act with impunity,” Dame Lynne Owens, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, said in a statement Thursday.
“They believe they can hide behind digital identities and platforms such as LabHost and have absolute confidence these sites are impenetrable by policing.”
Owens added that the operation showed “how law enforcement worldwide can, and will, come together with one another and private sector partners to dismantle international fraud networks at source.”
Private companies including blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, Intel 471, Microsoft, The Shadowserver Foundation, and Trend Micro worked with police to identify and bring down LabHost.
The investigation started in June 2022 after police received intelligence about LabHost’s activities from the Cyber Defence Alliance, an intelligence sharing alliance between banks and law enforcement agencies.
The Met’s Cyber Crime Unit then joined forces with the National Crime Agency, City of London Police, Europol, regional U.K. authorities, as well as other international police forces to take action.
Omar Marques | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
EToro, a stock brokerage platform that’s been ramping up in crypto, has priced its IPO at $52 a share, as the company prepares to test the market’s appetite for new offerings.
The company had planned to sell shares at $46 to $50 each.
IPOs looked poised for a rebound when President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January after a prolonged drought spurred by rising interest rates and inflationary concerns. CoreWeave’s March debut was a welcome sign for IPO hopefuls such as eToro, online lender Klarna and ticket reseller StubHub.
But tariff uncertainty temporarily stalled those plans. The retail trading platform filed for an initial public offering in March, but shelved plans as rising tariff uncertainty rattled markets. Klarna and StubHub did the same.
EToro’s Nasdaq debut, under ticker symbol ETOR, may indicate whether the public market is ready to take on risk. Digital physical therapy company Hinge Health has started its IPO roadshow, and said in a filing on Tuesday that it plans to raise up to $437 million in its upcoming offering. Also on Tuesday, fintech company Chime filed its prospectus with the SEC.
Founded in 2007 by brothers Yoni and Ronen Assia along with David Ring, eToro competes with the likes of Robinhood and makes money through fees related to trading, including spreads on buy and sell orders, and non-trading activities such as withdrawals and currency conversion.
Net income jumped almost thirteenfold last year to $192.4 million from $15.3 million a year earlier. The company has been ramping up its crypto business, with revenue from cryptoassets more than tripling to over $12 million in 2024. One-quarter of its net trading contribution last year came from crypto, up from 10% the prior year.
This isn’t eToro’s first attempt at going public. In 2022, the company scrapped plans to hit the market through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) during a sharp downturn in equity markets. The deal would have valued the company at more than $10 billion.
CEO Yoni Assia told CNBC early last year that eToro was still aiming for a market debut but “evaluating the right opportunity” as it was building relationships with exchanges, including the Nasdaq.
“We definitely are eyeing the public markets,” he said at the time. “I definitely see us becoming eventually a public company.”
EToro said in its prospectus that BlackRock had expressed interest in buying $100 million in shares at the IPO price. The company said it planned to sell 5 million shares in the offering, with existing investors and executives selling another 5 million.
Underwriters for the deal include Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and UBS.
— CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed reporting
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