Legislation enforcement authorities on Tuesday introduced the cross-border dismantling of the infamous Qakbot cybercrime operation that hit greater than 700,000 computer systems globally with ransomware and monetary fraud assaults.
The takedown, dubbed Operation Duck Hunt, consists of the takeover of the Qakbot infrastructure and the distribution of a software program utility to robotically uninstall the Qakbot malware from contaminated machines.
The Qakbot disruption is being hailed as “the biggest U.S.-led monetary and technical disruption of a botnet” the place the FBI was in a position to achieve entry to Qakbot infrastructure and determine greater than 700,000 computer systems worldwide, together with greater than 200,000 in america, that seem to have been contaminated with Qakbot.
“To disrupt the botnet, the FBI was in a position to redirect Qakbot botnet visitors to and thru servers managed by the FBI, which in flip instructed contaminated computer systems in america and elsewhere to obtain a file created by legislation enforcement that may uninstall the Qakbot malware,” the Justice Division stated in a observe asserting the takedown.
The Division additionally introduced the seizure of greater than $8.6 million in cryptocurrency in illicit income.
The multinational operation, which concerned actions in america, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Romania, and Latvia, primarily cripples one of the extremely structured and multi-layered botnets used for cybercrime actions.
In response to court docket paperwork, Qakbot is controlled by an unnamed cybercriminal group and used to focus on important industries worldwide by way of spam electronic mail messages containing malicious attachments or hyperlinks.
Qakbot has been used as an preliminary technique of an infection by many prolific ransomware teams that extort victims, looking for ransom funds in bitcoin earlier than returning entry to the sufferer’s laptop networks.
“Investigators have discovered proof that, between October 2021 and April 2023, Qakbot directors obtained charges equivalent to roughly $58 million in ransoms paid by victims,” the Justice Division stated.
“The FBI neutralized this far-reaching prison provide chain, chopping it off on the knees,” stated FBI Director Christopher Wray. He famous that Qakbot victims ranged from monetary establishments on the East Coast to a important infrastructure authorities contractor in the Midwest to a medical system producer on the West Coast.
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