CyberBunker
CyberBunker was an Internet service provider located in the Netherlands and Germany that, according to its website, "hosted services to any website except child pornography and anything related to terrorism". The company first operated in a former NATO bunker in Zeeland, and later in another former NATO bunker in Traben-Trarbach, Germany.
CyberBunker served as a web host for
The company is named for its initial location in a former Cold War bunker.[4] As of 2013, CyberBunker listed its address as the bunker, but the location of CyberBunker's servers was unclear.[5] Sven Olaf Kamphuis referred to CyberBunker as the Republic of CyberBunker and referred to himself as the Minister of Telecommunications and Foreign Affairs.[6][7]
In September 2019, the
History
Dutch bunker (CB-1)
In 1995, Herman-Johan Xennt bought a 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) bunker just outside the small town of
With collaborators, Xennt formed the CyberBunker company within the bunker, to offer "bulletproof hosting" of web sites.[9][10] The company's customers during the 1990s consisted largely of pornography web sites.[9][10] Its policy was to accept any web site except those related to child pornography and terrorism.[13]
In 2002, a fire broke out in the Dutch bunker. After the fire was put out, it was discovered that besides Internet hosting services, an MDMA laboratory was in operation.[14][9][10] Three of the four men charged with the operation of the lab were convicted to three-year prison sentences; the fourth was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.[15] Following the fire the local town denied the company a business license, resulting in the CyberBunker servers being moved to above-ground locations, including Amsterdam.[9][16]
In its publicity, the company continued to claim that it operated from the bunker.
The Pirate Bay
In October 2009
Spamhaus
In October 2011,
In March 2013, Spamhaus added CyberBunker to its blacklist. Shortly afterwards a
Cloudflare, an Internet security firm located in San Francisco, California, assisting Spamhaus in combating the DoS attack was also targeted. On 28 March 2013, CyberBunker's website went offline for a short period of time, possibly becoming a victim of a DDoS attack themselves.[24]
On 25 April 2013, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, a vocal spokesman for CyberBunker, was arrested at the request of Dutch authorities near Barcelona by Spanish Police after collaboration through Eurojust.[25] An anonymous press release uploaded on Pastebin.com the following day demanding the release of Kamphuis threatened more large-scale attacks should he remain in custody.[26][27] The Spanish authorities reported that Kamphuis operated from a well-equipped bunker and used a van as a mobile computing office. No further information on this bunker was provided.[28] In September 2013, it was revealed that a second arrest had been made in April in relation to the Spamhaus attack, the suspect being a 16-year-old from London.[29][30] Kamphuis was held for 55 days awaiting extradition to the Netherlands and was later found guilty and sentenced to 240 days in prison. His sentence was suspended, with credit for the 55 days served.[31]
Traben-Trarbach bunker (CB-3)
In 2013, the company purchased its second bunker in
In September 2019, 600 German police officers raided the bunker.[16] Seven people were arrested in the raid.[35] Police later said that the bunker was the location from which a late 2016 denial of service attack on Deutsche Telekom had been launched.[35]
In 2021, Xennt and six other defendants were convicted of having formed a criminal organization, but were acquitted of having aided and abetted the crimes committed on their servers. They received sentences between 28 and 59 months in prison.[36]
In December 2023, their site became active again under cyberbunker.pro and cyberbunker.world.[citation needed]
Documentary
The Netflix documentary Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld was released in 2023. It contains interviews with the investigating prosecutor and police officers, journalists, the mayor of Traben-Trarbach, Xennt and other members of his organization. Police revealed that they had planted an undercover gardener and a cleaning lady in the bunker and that they lured Xennt and his crew out of the bunker before the raid.[33]
References
- ^ Motion Picture Association of America. 13 May 2010. Archived from the original(PDF) on 1 June 2010. Retrieved 29 April 2014.
- ^ Spamhaus.org - listings for IPs under the responsibility of cb3rob.net Archived 30 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine, records retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ^ BGPMon.net Looking at the spamhaus DDOS from a BGP perspective Archived 5 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine, article retrieved 29 April 2013.
- ^ "CyberBunker datacentrum in Goes · DatacentrumGids.nl". Archived from the original on 23 January 2010.
- ^ Pfanner, Eric; O'Brien, Kevin J. (29 March 2013). "Provocateur Comes Into View After Cyberattack". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 30 March 2013. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
... CyberBunker still lists its address as the bunker. But Joost Verboom, a Dutch businessman, says the address is occupied by his own company, BunkerInfra Datacenters, which is building a subterranean Web hosting center at the site. Mr. Verboom said CyberBunker and Mr. Kamphuis left the site a decade ago. It is not clear where the servers of CyberBunker and CB3ROB are now. ...
- ISBN 978-1-137-49670-6. Archivedfrom the original on 17 April 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
- ^ Pfanner, Eric; O'Brien, Kevin. "Provocateur Comes Into View After Cyberattack". NY Times. Archived from the original on 30 March 2013. Retrieved 26 February 2017.
- ^ "Mit 650 Einsatzkräften Cyberbunker in Traben-Trarbach gestürmt". rheinpfalz.de (in German). Archived from the original on 27 September 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Caesar, Ed. "The Cold War Bunker That Became Home to a Dark-Web Empire". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 29 September 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- ^ a b c d "Brein bulletproofhoster Duitsland zat ook achter Cyberbunker". Emerce (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- ^ PMC-bunkerbezetting in Kloetinge: het verslag Archived 7 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine (Dutch), article retrieved 28 March 2013.
- ^ Forten.info - Provinciaal Militair Commando Archived 10 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine (Dutch), article retrieved 28 March 2013.
- ISBN 978-0-262-03885-0. Archivedfrom the original on 17 April 2024. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
- ^ Security.nl - Uitgebrande 'Cyberbunker' herbergde XTC-lab Archived 17 April 2024 at the Wayback Machine (Dutch), article retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ^ OmroepZeeland.nl - Cel wegens runnen XTC-laboratorium Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine (Dutch), article retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ^ a b c Gallagher, Sean (30 September 2019). "German police seize "bulletproof" hosting data center in former NATO bunker". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 10 June 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- ^ BunkerInfra.com - Cyberbunker not located in a bunker in Goes, the Netherlands Archived 11 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine, article retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ^ Riley, Michael; Matlack, Carol; Levine, Robert (4 April 2013). "CyberBunker: Hacking as Performance Art". Businessweek. Archived from the original on 6 April 2013. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
- ^ "Dutch ISP Hits Spamhaus With Police Complaints | TechWeekEurope UK". Archived from the original on 9 December 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
- ^ Kovacs, Eduard (13 October 2011). "TPB Causes Argument Between Dutch ISP and Anti-Spam Organization". softpedia. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
- ^ Rob Williams for Hot Hardware (2013), DDoS Attack Against Spamhaus Exposes Huge Security Threat On DNS Servers Archived 29 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine, article retrieved 28 September 2013.
- ^ Gallagher, Sean (28 March 2013). "How Spamhaus' attackers turned DNS into a weapon of mass destruction". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
- ^ a b c Lee, Dave (27 March 2013). "Global internet slows after 'biggest attack in history'". BBC News. Archived from the original on 1 October 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
- ^ Informationweek Security - DDoS Spam Feud Backfires: 'Bulletproof' CyberBunker Busted Archived 1 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine, article retrieved 30 March 2013.
- ^ Perlroth, Nicole (26 April 2013). "Dutch Man Said to Be Held in Powerful Internet Attack". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 April 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
- ^ Pastebin.com - Official press release #freecb3rob Archived 7 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 26 April 2013.
- ^ Brenno de Winter - Nu.nl - Groep dreigt met 'grootste aanval ooit' om arrestatie hacker Archived 12 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine (Dutch), article retrieved 26 April 2013.
- ^ The Washington Post / Associated Press - Dutch suspect arrested in Spain over major cyberattack used well-equipped 'bunker' and van[dead link] - article retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ^ Ernesto for TorrentFreak (2013), The Pirate Bay relocates to a nuclear bunker Archived 30 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine, article retrieved 21 January 2015.
- ^ James Legge for The Independent (2013), London teenager arrested over huge cyberattack Archived 12 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine, article retrieved 28 September 2013.
- ^ Paganini, Pierluigi (16 November 2016). "Hacker behind Spamhaus attack will not spend any time in the jail". Security Affairs. Archived from the original on 17 April 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
- ^ "Honeypot behind sold-off IP subnet shows Cyberbunker biz hosted all kinds of filth, says SANS Institute". theregister.com. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- ^ a b "Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld". netflix.com. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
- ^ Vigliarolo, Brandon (7 February 2023). "Eurocops shut down Exclu encrypted messaging app". theregister.com. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
- ^ a b "Germany shuts down illegal data center in former NATO bunker". AP News. 27 September 2019. Archived from the original on 19 August 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- ^ "Cyberbunker-Betreiber zu Haftstrafen verurteilt". golem.de (in German). 13 December 2021. Archived from the original on 11 November 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.