FBI Seizes Domain of Bulletproof Hosting Provider Virtualine
The FBI and US prosecutors have seized the primary domain of Virtualine, a Russian-speaking “bulletproof” hosting provider that rents out infrastructure to criminals while ignoring takedown requests. The Justice Department announced the court-ordered seizure on October 28, 2026. The service also operated under several other brand names, and authorities said its customers used it for sextortion, ransomware, data theft, malware hosting and money laundering, as well as to distribute child sexual abuse material.
According to officials, Virtualine continued hosting a CSAM distributor and a hack-for-hire service even after receiving notices from law enforcement in Germany, Canada and Australia, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and from a victim’s attorney. No arrests or criminal charges were mentioned in the reporting.
Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs said Virtualine received the most illicit-attributed value of any bulletproof host it has tracked in 2026, close to a fifth of illicit inflows to the providers in its dataset. Payments came largely from a Russian drug marketplace, sextortion operations, a crypto mixer and ransomware groups, including Qilin, DragonForce and INC. TRM cautioned that the action disrupted Virtualine rather than shutting it down, since customers may still reach the underlying infrastructure.