Microsoft seizes infrastructure of top cybercrime group

Microsoft announced a court-authorized takedown of Storm-1152, an organized cybercrime operation that created roughly 750 million fraudulent Microsoft accounts and provided CAPTCHA-bypass and account-selling services to enable phishing, spam, ransomware, and other criminal activity; the action seized U.S.-based infrastructure and websites (including hotmailbox.me) and identified operators, leading to a criminal referral and industry collaboration to disrupt the service.