Security News > 2021 > January > Emotet Botnet Disrupted in Global Law Enforcement Operation
Authorities have managed to disrupt the infrastructure of the Emotet botnet, as part of an international effort of law enforcement agencies across Europe and North America.
One of the most prevalent botnets over the past decade, Emotet first emerged in 2014 as a banking Trojan, but evolved into a malware downloader used by many cybercriminals looking to spread their malicious payloads.
Emotet has become, as Europol described it, "a primary door opener for computer systems on a global scale," as its operators were selling access to infected computers to cybercrime groups that engaged in activities such as data theft or extortion.
Malicious documents attached to the emails or linked to in the message would ask the user to enable macros, which allowed malicious code to run in the background and install Emotet.
Emotet then acted as a loader, as its operators allowed other cybercriminals to rent the botnet to deploy their own malware, including banking Trojans, ransomware, and other malicious applications.
A video of a house search performed as part of the operation, which the National Police of Ukraine published on YouTube, shows authorities seizing hard drives, computers, and other equipment, along with large amounts of money and what appear to be gold bars, which clearly shows that Emotet was a highly profitable cybercriminal enterprise.