Emotet Returns to Hit 100K Mailboxes Per Day

2020-12-23 15:36

After a lull of nearly two months, the Emotet botnet has returned with updated payloads and a campaign that is hitting 100,000 targets per day.

"The Emotet botnet is one of the most prolific senders of malicious emails when it is active, but it regularly goes dormant for weeks or months at a time," said Brad Haas, researcher at Cofense, in a Tuesday blog.

Thread hijacking is a trick Emotet added in the fall, flagged by researchers at Palo Alto Networks.

"We typically observe hundreds of thousands of emails per day when Emotet is operating. This campaign is on par for them. As these campaigns are ongoing, we are doing totals on a rolling basis. Volumes in these campaigns are similar to other campaigns in the past, generally around 100,000 to 500,000 per day."

"Emotet is most feared for its alliances with other criminals, especially those in the ransomware business. The Emotet - TrickBot - Ryuk triad wreaked havoc around Christmas time in 2018," according to Malwarebytes.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/emotet-returns-100k-mailboxes/162584/