International Effort Dismantles Cybercriminals Network
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Law enforcement agencies from several countries collaborated in a joint operation that resulted in taking over the command-and-control infrastructure behind Emotet, one of the world's largest botnets. Whether this disruption to the botnet will be permanent remains to be seen, but it's a promising development according to security experts.
"This operation is the result of a collaborative effort between authorities in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Lithuania, Canada and Ukraine, with international activity coordinated by Europol and Eurojust," Europol announced Wednesday. "This operation was carried out in the framework of the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT)."
According to Vinay Pidathala, director of security research at Menlo Security, Emotet was the most prevalent malware observed in 2020 and the latest identified Emotet samples in the company's global cloud date January 2.
Even if this turns out to be the death of Emotet, other botnet operators will rush to fill the void and serve TA542's former customers, as this is usually what happens in the cybercrime ecosystem when a big player goes down.
"We need to be cautious; threat actors are becoming smarter and better every single day," Francisco Donoso, director of global security strategy at Kudelski Security, tells CSO. "Every time this occurs, they will learn what technical (or likely operational) security steps they could have taken to reduce the risk of getting caught. There are significant resources being spent on both sides of this 'battle' and the criminals will continue to see value in building such botnets, as we are talking about a multi-billion-dollar industry."
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