First VPN Dismantled in Global Takedown Over Use by 25 Ransomware Groups

Authorities in Europe and North America have announced the dismantling of a criminal virtual private network (VPN) service used by criminal actors to obscure the origins of ransomware attacks, data theft, scanning, and denial-of-service attacks. Codenamed Operation Saffron, the disruption of First VPN Service was led by France and the Netherlands, with several other nations supporting the

The article reports that international law enforcement, led by France and the Netherlands, dismantled "First VPN," a criminal-focused VPN service used by at least 25 ransomware groups to hide the origin of ransomware attacks, data theft, scanning, DDoS activity, and other cybercrime.[1][5][6] Authorities seized infrastructure across multiple countries and arrested the administrator, disrupting a service that had become deeply embedded in the broader cybercrime ecosystem.[1][6] From a CyberSE.AI perspective, such hardened anonymity and infrastructure-as-a-service offerings significantly lower the barrier for malicious automation and AI-augmented attacks by providing resilient, deniable network infrastructure for command-and-control, data exfiltration, and distributed exploitation. Organizations deploying AI agents should assume adversaries will use similar criminal infrastructure to mask AI-driven intrusion attempts and therefore need continuous AI red teaming and telemetry-aware defenses that can detect and respond to attacks even when they are routed through ostensibly legitimate VPN endpoints.