Joker's Stash, the Internet's largest marketplace for selling stolen card data, announced today that it will be shutting down until February 15, 2021.
The news was announced today by the webmaster via messages posted on various underground forums in cyberspace, where the site usually advertises its services.
"The closure of Joker's Stash comes after a very tumultuous 2020," she said threat intelligence Intel 471 in a blog post documenting the site's shutdown.
"In October, the webmaster announced that he had contracted COVID-19, spending a week in hospital. "The situation affected the forums, card replacements and other work," the company said.
"Intel 471 also noticed that customers of the site complained that the quality of the card data was getting worse."
In addition, in December 2020, the FBI and Interpol occupied four domains used by the online marketplace.
At the time, the site's administrators said that the law's suppression of domains had a limited impact on the site, as they were used only as proxies to redirect customers from landing pages to the actual marketplace.
However, while the seizure had limited impact, it appeared to affect the site's reputation by showing customers that Joker's Stash was under surveillance by law enforcement agencies.
So while the Joker's Stash admin didn't give many details about the site's shutdown, it's very likely that he feared an upcoming invasion by the Authorities.
Of course, this does not mean that the administrator is no longer safe. U.S. authorities have charged cyber criminals many years after the crimes.
Before announcing his "retirement" today, Joker's Stash was considered one of the most profitable businesses in cyberspace today.
The store is estimated to have made hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal profits, although this money goes to the sellers themselves.
In 2020 alone, the site published more than 35 million CP (card present) and over 8 million CNP (cardless) numbers for sale.
Joker's Stash has been running since October 7, 2014. The site admin has stated that he plans to delete all servers and copies security when the site closes next month.
