European and American police on Wednesday took control of the infrastructure behind a massive network that criminals use for cybercrime, the AP reports.
Why it’s important: In claiming the infrastructure, authorities dealt a major blow to cybercriminals using Emotet – one of the world’s largest networks of hijacked computers – to install ransomware as part of extortion schemes and burglary. financiers.
Context: Ransomware criminals have paralyzed health systems and governments with the help of hijacked computer networks like Emotet.
- Ransomware works by analyzing victims ’data, allowing criminals to demand money in exchange for decoding software to repair it.
The big picture: European Union police and the judicial agencies Europol and Eurojus, two agencies based in The Hague, coordinated the operation with authorities from the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Lithuania, Canada and Ukraine.
In the meantime: The FBI announced Wednesday that it has arrested a Canadian as part of an intention to disrupt the ransomware gang NetWalker, which he said had been targeted at the healthcare industry. The arrest included the confiscation of nearly half a million dollars in cryptocurrency.
Thought bubble, through Zach Dorfman of the Aspen Institute: The large number of countries involved and the magnitude of the operation and coordination headaches show the grave challenge they have become in cybercrime and botnet groups.
- As Wired points out, it was a “global effort” that toppled the command and control infrastructure in 90 countries.
- And, unlike a joint public-private action last year designed to curb the massive Trickbot botnet, the move against Emotet seems aimed at crushing it permanently.
In depth: The rise and rise of ransomware