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Law enforcement agencies in over a dozen countries collaborated to disrupt the infrastructure of the TrickBot botnet and other malware droppers in Operation Endgame, resulting in arrests, asset freezes, and the shutdown of servers and domains.
- Operation Endgame targeted Bumblebee, IcedID, Pikabot, Smokeloader, SystemBC, and Trickbot to disrupt their criminal activities and arrest cybercriminals.
- The malware droppers were used for information harvesting, maintaining control of compromised machines, and deploying additional malware families, including ransomware.
- TrickBot, active since at least 2016 and linked to cybercriminals with ties to Russian intelligence services, survived a takedown attempt in late 2020.
- Eight individuals believed to be linked to these activities were added to Europol's Most Wanted list, with one suspect earning over $75 million in cryptocurrency from renting websites to ransomware operators.
- Operation Endgame resulted in four arrests, searches at 16 locations, shutdown of over 100 servers, seizure of over 2,000 domains, and participation from multiple countries and private partners.
Tags:
law enforcement
malware
international cooperation