Security News > 2021 > June > US charges Latvian for helping develop the Trickbot malware
The US Department of Justice announced today that a Latvian national was charged for her alleged role as a malware developer in the Trickbot transnational cybercrime organization.
As a Trickbot malware developer, Witte wrote the code used by the malware to control, deploy, and manage payments of ransomware, the DOJ said in a press release published today.
Trickbot is a malware strain first spotted in October 2016 as a modular banking trojan that has been continuously upgraded with new modules and features since then.
Even though initially used only for harvesting sensitive data, Trickbot has slowly evolved into a highly dangerous malware dropper used to deliver additional, usually a lot more dangerous, malware payloads on infected devices.
Despite these coordinated attacks against TrickBot's infrastructure, the TrickBot gang's botnet is still active, and the group is still releasing new malware builds.
"The Trickbot malware was designed to steal the personal and financial information of millions of people around the world, thereby causing extensive financial harm and inflicting significant damage to critical infrastructure within the United States and abroad," Acting US Attorney Bridget M. Brennan of the Northern District of Ohio added.