A 19-year-old young man was behind the data bot in new companies, including energy and insurance, and was trying to sell this valuable information, including DNI numbers, first and last names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and even IBAN codes, essential for making international bank transfers. The boy was arrested last week in the town of Igualada (Barcelona, 41,466 inhabitants) during a National Police operation. Researchers estimate that there are 64 million pieces of private data.
The investigator was a young man who was studying vocational training in the IT field, but he dropped out because he was “bored” and also temporarily worked in a technology company, according to information provided by those familiar with the operation. At such times, he found himself without a familiar occupation. According to research, he tried to sell the information obtained on various forums. pirates. To this end, he used six different accounts and five different pseudonyms, according to a statement from the national police. The investigation included agents from the General Information Commission (CGI), which investigates these crimes when they affect critical infrastructure, such as an energy company, and from the General Judicial Police Commission (CGP), responsible for prosecuting those who steal information for economic purposes.
The investigation began last June, when officers discovered new companies were affected by data fraud. Through several directions, they established the main project in this Barcelona site and proved that they had achieved more than 64 million of these data.
After five months of searching, last week they moved to an urban house where the young people were arrested and where several computer devices intervened, which were still being analyzed, but it was clear that data and information had been removed from other entities, such as universities, as well as invoices stored on these devices. The researchers also blocked a stockpile of cryptocurrencies from which gains from data sales are suspected to have been made. These sums were between 8,000 and 10,000 euros, depending on the sources consulted.
Those under investigation for these offenses may be young people who started between the ages of 14 and 15 and learn the power of exchanging advice or tips on internet forums.
In recent months, several cases have been known in which the age of the cybercriminals was very low. In October, for example, two minors were arrested in Catalonia and Albacete, as being responsible for the dissemination, via the chat of an instant messaging application, Telegram, of confidential data coming, among others, from the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the ministers Margarita Robles and José Manuel Albares, members of the security forces and agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI).
The investigation was then directed against a hacker who called himself N4t0x and had collected a message on the Internet in which he claimed to have carried out, with other people, “a megafiltration of the personal data of the vast majority of Spanish politicians” with a computer tool called SpainData. According to this message, the tool allows you to “make consultations with 100% of the Spanish population” and is proportional to your current address and DNI number. “Every time someone modifies and updates their data on government networks, we do it too,” he says to be able to define this tool as “something very powerful and compromising”.
The latest report on cybercrime in Spain in 2024, published in November, records an increase in cyberattacks perpetrated by hacker groups against companies and public bodies. In this section, the report cites the prominent group Nonnom057whose structure was partially dismantled last July during an international operation in which the National Police participated. Among the leaders of this group close to Vladimir Putin’s regime is the Spanish professor Enrique Arias Gil, allegedly a refugee in Moscow and for whom the National Court has issued an international arrest warrant. THE Nonnom057 He is considered responsible for launching more than 500 attacks against Spain in 2022 due to Madrid’s support for Ukraine.
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