Europol Launches Major Operation Against Malicious Software, Arrests 4

TapTechNews May 30th, comprehensive reports from Reuters and AFP, on Thursday local time, Europol announced a major operation against malicious software, issuing 10 international arrest warrants and arresting 4 people.

The General Prosecutor's Office in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and the Federal Criminal Police Office said today that through the largest international cyber police operation to date, law enforcement authorities have dealt a major blow to cybercrime. It was reported that the botnets that were disrupted included IcedID, Smokeloader, SystemBC, Pikabot and Bumblebee.

In this multi-country joint operation, law enforcement officers confiscated more than 100 servers and shut down more than 1300 domain name services, removing multiple dangerous families of malicious software from the internet, which can be exploited to break into other people's computers. Investigators said that many people have been wanted, and they are strongly suspected of participating in the spread of malicious software as members of a criminal organization.

This operation is known as the 'Endgame Operation', initiated and led by Germany, France and the Netherlands. The police carried out 16 searches in 4 different countries.

A statement from the Dutch National Police said that this action shows that people always leave traces online, 'No one cannot be found.' Investigators said that one of the main suspects made at least 69 million euros (TapTechNews note: currently about 542 million RMB) in cryptocurrency by renting out criminal infrastructure websites to deploy ransomware.