This story appeared recently on the BBC website.

Three members of a notorious hacking group, variously called Fin7, Carbanak and JokerStash, have been arrested and named. The three individuals were arrested in Germany, Poland and Spain: one has already been extradited to the US and extradition proceedings have begun against the other two. The hacking group had attacked targets in the US, UK, France and Australia, and is still active today.

The remarkable thing about these arrests is that law enforcement had to overcome one of the largest obstacles to law enforcement in the digital age: legal jurisdiction.  Where computers are connected to each other globally, with actions being carried out from different countries, often in different continents, it’s hard to know which laws have been broken, and which law enforcement agency takes priority / precedence.

In this case, those answers appear to have been solved. There has been a lot of collaboration between the various law enforcement agencies in the US and Europe, resulting in these arrests. It is to be hoped that this level of collaboration becomes the norm, and that countries are able to work together to bring criminals to justice, wherever they are active and irrespective of where their targets are.