Loading story…
U.S. and European authorities are intensifying efforts against The Com, a sprawling, youth-driven ecosystem associated with cyber-enabled extortion, harassment, and offline violence. Europol-coordinated Project Compass, supported by 28 countries (including the Five Eyes), reported 30 arrests, the full or partial identification of 179 perpetrators, the safeguarding of four victims, and the identification of up to 62 victims; officials described The Com as splintered into Hacker Com, In Real Life Com, and Extortion Com, with members using identity obfuscation and financial laundering to evade detection.
Separate reporting highlighted the 764 network as a decentralized online threat linked to the grooming and coercion of minors via trust-based manipulation across mainstream platforms, aligning with recent U.S. federal law-enforcement warnings about structured grooming “architectures” and targeting patterns. While 764 and The Com are not presented as the same organization, both references describe overlapping risk themes—online communities that deliberately target minors, blend digital coercion with real-world harm, and create downstream organizational risk through victimization, extortion, and exploitation that can spill into schools, families, and workplaces.
Mallory correlates global threat intelligence with your attack surface — know if you’re exposed before adversaries strike.
4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
Europol publicly described The Com as split into Hacker Com, In Real Life Com, and Extortion Com, and linked the offshoot "764" to cases involving coercion of vulnerable children into producing child sexual abuse material and other violent acts, noting multiple arrests and guilty pleas tied to that offshoot.
By late February 2026, Europol said Project Compass had led to 30 arrests since its January 2025 start, the full or partial identification of 179 perpetrators, the safeguarding of four victims, and the identification of up to 62 victims.
In the months leading up to March 2026, U.S. federal law enforcement agencies repeatedly warned about the decentralized "764" network, linking it to the grooming and coercion of minors across mainstream digital platforms.
Europol and partner agencies from 28 countries began Project Compass, a coordinated international law-enforcement initiative aimed at disrupting "The Com," a youth-heavy cybercriminal ecosystem involved in cybercrime, extortion, and physical violence.
Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.
2 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
osintteam.blog
Open sourcecyberscoop.com
Open sourceMap indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
A Europol-coordinated law enforcement effort dubbed **Project Compass** has led to the arrest of **30 suspected members of “The Com,”** a decentralized, largely Western, youth-driven cybercrime ecosystem linked to hacking, sextortion, and related physical harm targeting minors and other vulnerable individuals. Europol said **28 countries** participated, and authorities have **fully or partially identified 179 perpetrators**, with the operation framed as an attempt to disrupt violent online extremism that can function like an “online cult community” recruiting offenders and victims. The reporting also notes law enforcement focus on **spinoff groups such as “764,”** which the U.S. Department of Justice has described as a **“nihilistic violent extremist group.”** Separately, U.S. officials described ongoing efforts against **Southeast Asian scam compounds** conducting *pig-butchering* and other cryptocurrency investment fraud and laundering at scale; while related to transnational cyber-enabled crime, that activity is a different enforcement and threat topic than Project Compass and “The Com.”
Jun 29, 2026
Europol said investigators from nine European countries flagged **4,340 URLs** for removal during Referral Action Days aimed at disrupting **The Com**, a decentralized online network tied to nihilistic violent extremism. The operation, organized by Europol’s **EU Internet Referral Unit** and Spain’s **CITCO**, targeted content spread across social media, messaging apps, and gaming platforms that promoted self-harm, suicide, child sexual abuse material, animal cruelty, violent attacks, and guides for grooming, murder, improvised explosives, doxing, and swatting. Authorities said The Com recruits and grooms young people online, often coercing minors through sextortion and pushing them toward both victimization and offending. Europol linked the action to its broader **Project COMPASS** effort, which had already produced arrests, identified suspects, and located victims, and noted that subgroups associated with the network include **764**. That subgroup drew earlier law-enforcement attention after U.S. prosecutors charged alleged leaders of 764 with operating a global child exploitation enterprise, underscoring how extremist online communities are overlapping with organized child abuse and coercion networks.
Jul 31, 2026
The FBI and IC3 warned that **nihilistic violent extremist networks** and broader communities known as **"The Com"** are targeting children and other vulnerable people online through extortion, coercion, stalking, and abuse. Federal notices said the groups operate across social media, messaging apps, gaming platforms, and other online services, using threats, manipulation, and criminal tradecraft to pressure victims into self-harm, sexual exploitation, violence, and other dangerous acts in the United States and abroad. Reporting and law-enforcement disclosures tied those networks to a wider cybercrime ecosystem that overlaps with groups linked to major intrusions, SIM swapping, credential theft, doxing, swatting, sextortion, and ransomware activity. CyberScoop reported federal investigators were probing **764** and related actors for using cybercriminal methods to facilitate violent crimes, while KrebsOnSecurity described connections among harm groups, **Scattered Spider**, **LAPSUS$**, and other actors associated with breaches and abuse campaigns. Separate FBI outreach on malware hidden in games hosted on **Steam** underscored how gaming platforms are also being used to reach and victimize users, especially younger targets.
Jun 29, 2026