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COPS SWARM GLOBAL CYBERCRIME BOTNET INFRASTRUCTURE IN 2 MASSIVE OPS

Europol undertook dropper malware botnet takedown while US law enforcement
dismantled a sprawling cybercrime botnet for hire.

Becky Bracken, Senior Editor, Dark Reading

May 30, 2024

4 Min Read
Source: Jeffrey Blackler via Alamy Stock Photo


Europol and the US Department of Justice are claiming big wins against a large
swath of the global cybercrime botnet infrastructure.

Europol coordinated the international effort to neutralize dropper botnet
infrastructure for malware strains including IcedID, SystemBC, Pikabot,
Smokeloader, Bumblebee, and Trickbot, the agency said in a statement. The
multinational law enforcement operation, which Europol described as the "largest
ever operation against botnets," lasted from May 27 to May 29, and resulted in
the takedown of more than 100 servers suspected of being used to distribute
ransomware and other malware. The takedown also netted the arrest of four
suspects thought to be associated with the botnet.



"The actions focused on disrupting criminal services through arresting High
Value Targets, taking down the criminal infrastructures and freezing illegal
proceeds," Europol's statement said. "This approach had a global impact on the
dropper ecosystem."

Within hours, the Department of Justice successfully shut down the "911 S5"
botnet-for-hire operation and arrested its operator. The botnet is suspected to
have quietly infiltrated and hijacked more than 19 million IP addresses to build
a botnet used in all sorts of fraud and other unspeakable cybercrimes, according
to the DoJ statement.



The 911 S5 botnet includes a "client interface," which is used by cybercriminals
to launder money earned by illicit means and illegally send it out of the US,
according to the DoJ. In addition, the US estimated that the IP addresses linked
to 911 S5 were behind 560,000 scam unemployment insurance claims, racking up
losses of more than $5.9 billion. The botnet also helped run up millions in
payments from US pandemic relief programs as well as various other scams, the
DoJ said.



"Working with our international partners, the FBI conducted a joint, sequenced
cyber operation to dismantle the 911 S5 Botnet — likely the world's largest
botnet ever," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement on the botnet
operation.

Cybersecurity professionals applaud the coordinated and concerted effort to
disrupt the fundamental cybercrime infrastructure, but also acknowledge there's
still work to be done.

"The recent actions taken against botnets have deep implications for the
cybersecurity industry," says Chris Morales, CISO for Netenrich. "These
operations disrupt the core infrastructure of cybercrime, targeting networks of
compromised devices that are often used for malicious activities, such as DDoS
attacks and data theft."



The worst-case scenario that could emerge after these law enforcement crackdowns
on botnets is that the group could reconstitute its network with the millions of
devices that remain infected, according to Toby Lewis, Darktrace's global head
of threat analysis.

"Attackers could regain command of a seized domain and swiftly reactivate the
compromised devices that have been lying in wait," Lewis says. "Law enforcement
must remain vigilant, closely monitoring for any signs of the criminals
attempting to establish new command and control servers or resurging botnet
activity."

But that worst-case possibility is unlikely to emerge, considering the arrests
of the botnet operations top leadership, says John Bambenek, president at
Bambenek Consulting.

"An arrest takes a criminal out of play which, depending on how much of the
group was arrested, means those given campaigns aren't coming back," Bambenek
says. "Eliminating such a large botnet, assuming they did it in a way that
uninstalls the malware and secures the machine, means the criminal ecosystem
will have to rebuild significant capacity for malware delivery."



Beyond diminished network capacity, Bugcrowd's founder and chief strategy
officer, Casey Ellis, explains there is a psychological cost being inflicted on
the botnet ecosystem in the aftermath of the takedowns.

"The material impact to attackers is that [international law enforcement] just
had it laid out to them, very clearly, that there’s a capable, resourced, and
persistent threat in play on the defender side," Ellis says.

Tom Gorup, vice president of security services at Edigo, is also encouraged by
the collaborative work of law enforcement to disable global botnet operations.
But he hedges his enthusiasm with a warning that the fight is far from over for
the cybersecurity community.

"The fact that law enforcement was not only able to take down the attacker
infrastructure, but also incarcerate individuals involved is tremendous," Gorup
explains. "Although this take down is certain to have a positive impact on the
safety of the Internet, our jobs aren’t finished yet. Unfortunately, there are
many more botnets similar to this."




ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Becky Bracken, Senior Editor, Dark Reading




See more from Becky Bracken, Senior Editor, Dark Reading
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