A one-two punch delivered globally disrupts the “assembly line” of cybercrime

Having evidence that the equipment contained additional equipment, the company’s lawyers applied RICO criminal law; the case was able to treat both weapons as part of the same conspiracy. As a result, Microsoft said it compromised more than 200 command and control servers and disabled criminal controls on more than 18,000 infected computers. Europol, which helped coordinate the law enforcement sector, he said it also recovered up to 27 million stolen credentials and recovered “crypto assets of criminal origin” worth $47 million.

“During this period, 326 servers and 142 domains were targeted by law enforcement authorities and private operators, which greatly hindered the distribution of the malware,” Europol said. “By eliminating these tools at the same time, cooperation between the government and private parties has increased the odds for cybercriminals, making it harder for criminals to succeed, spread, or recover.”

Other companies contributing to “Operation Endgame” include: ESET, Proofpoint and IBM X-Force, A little sightand Mitsui Bussan Safe Directions.

Europol says another weapon that has been compromised in Operation Endgame is SocGholish, a piece of malware linked to the Russian criminal group Evil Corp. which is spread through damaged web pages. Visitors to these sites are tricked into installing trojanized programs that look like browsers or other legitimate programs. Europol said it responded by cleaning up the infected WordPress sites and urging site administrators to update information and strengthen security. It has also helped inform the parties whose data and information was exposed through SocGholish’s activities. Countries participating in the enforcement action include Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US.