Badges, Bytes and Blackmail

"The growing sophistication and diversification of cybercrime have compelled law enforcement agencies worldwide to respond through increasingly coordinated and publicized actions. Yet, despite the visibility of these operations, there remains no comprehensive overview, to our knowledge, on how law enforcement is addressing cybercrime globally. Publicly available information is dispersed across agencies, jurisdictions, case-specific reporting (e.g., "Operation Endgame")[1], and reporting formats, offering fragmented insights rather than a cohesive understanding of what types of crime are being targeted, what actions are taken, and who the offenders are."

"To address this gap, this analysis introduces a systematically constructed dataset of 418 publicly announced law enforcement activities conducted between 2021 and mid-2025. The data was collected by Orange Cyberdefense intelligence teams, which continuously monitor and assess cyber threats to identify emerging trends and the evolution of cyber incidents. In our dataset each entry represents a verified law enforcement action collected from official announcements and media reports, then manually enriched by the Orange Cyberdefense Security Research Center team."

A systematically constructed dataset records 418 publicly announced law enforcement actions taken between 2021 and mid-2025. Data sources include official announcements and media reports monitored by Orange Cyberdefense intelligence teams. Each entry is verified and manually enriched with contextual and demographic details when available. The dataset catalogs types of law enforcement actions—arrests, extraditions, takedowns, seizures, and sanctions—and maps them to the illicit activities addressed, such as hacking, DDoS, IT worker fraud, and cyber extortion. The dataset provides a structured view to identify trends, target selection, and enforcement patterns across jurisdictions.

Read at The Hacker News