January 28, 2021

Anna Murray 

Law enforcement and judicial authorities in Canada, the US, and some European countries have cracked down on the notorious cybercriminal Emotet in January. According to a statement released by European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), an international law enforcement operation has taken down Emotet botnet from the inside and redirected victim devices to the authority’s controlled infrastructure.

Emotet started a banking trojan in 2014 and evolved over the years into one of the most dangerous cyber criminals in the world. The infrastructure of Emotet consisted of hundreds of servers around the world. All of these computers had various functionalities in managing the computers of the infected victims, spreading to new ones, serving other criminal groups, and safeguarding the network itself more resilient against police’s takedown attempts.

Its infrastructure usually gained access to target victims via automated emails spammed with Emotet malware in attachments. Once the malicious attached files were opened, Emotet then stole information and attacked others. Moreover, Emotet also sold stolen data to criminal groups to deploy illicit crimes like data theft and extortion through ransomware. Europol described its action to disrupt Emotet, which was one of the most significant botnets of the past decade, and protect the public from cyber threats.

Photo:Webshot.