Security News > 2021 > January > International law enforcement effort pulls off Emotet botnet takedown

Law enforcement and judicial authorities worldwide have effected a global takedown of the Emotet botnet, Europol announced today.

"The Emotet infrastructure essentially acted as a primary door opener for computer systems on a global scale. Once this unauthorised access was established, these were sold to other top-level criminal groups to deploy further illicit activities such data theft and extortion through ransomware. Investigators have now taken control of its infrastructure in an international coordinated action," they explained.

The Emotet takedown has included Europol, Eurojust, and authorities in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Lithuania, Canada and Ukraine.

The German Federal Criminal Police said that "As part of the legal assistance measures in Ukraine, control of the Emotet infrastructure was taken over from one of the alleged operators."

The Ukranian Cyberpolice said it identified two Ukrainian citizens who ensured the proper functioning of the Emotet infrastructure and that other members of an international hacker group who used the Emotet infrastructure to conduct cyberattacks have also been identified and measures are being taken to detain them.

A few years ago, Trend Micro researchers revealed that Emotet gang had set up two command and control infrastructures to make the botnet resilient to takedowns.

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