European and US police on Wednesday took control of the infrastructure behind a huge network used by criminals to carry out cyber crimes, reports the AP.
Why it matters: In claiming the infrastructure, the authorities dealt a huge blow to cybercriminals who use Emotet – one of the largest hijacked computer networks in the world – to install ransomware as part of extortion schemes and financial theft.
Context: Ransomware criminals have paralyzed healthcare systems and governments with the help of hijacked computer networks like Emotet.
- The ransomware works by shuffling the victim’s data, allowing criminals to demand money in exchange for decryption software to repair the data.
The big picture: The European Union police and the judicial agencies Europol and Eurojus, two agencies based in The Hague, coordinated the operation with authorities in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Lithuania, Canada and Ukraine.
Meantime: The FBI announced on Wednesday that it had arrested a Canadian as part of an attempt to dismantle the ransomware gang NetWalker, which it said was targeting the healthcare industry. Included in the prison was the seizure of nearly half a million dollars in cryptocurrencies.
Bubble, via Zach Dorfman, from the Aspen Institute: The sheer number of countries involved and the scale of the operation and the coordination headaches show how serious the challenges of cybercriminal groups and botnets have become.
- As Wired notes, it was a “global effort” that brought down command and control infrastructure in 90 countries.
- And, unlike a joint public-private action last year, designed to stop the massive Trickbot botnet, the movement against Emotet appears to aim to crush it permanently.
Go deeper: The rise and rise of ransomware