The infostealer malware operation lost its control panel to the law enforcement raid, severing it from clients and its central marketplace of stolen data, as well as some 2,300 domains belonging to the group, which has infected over 394,000 Windows computers globally.
Some of the biggest names in the botnet game, including 911 S5 and TrickBot, have been seriously impacted. In some cases, arrests of central figures were made during the Europol law enforcement investigation.
A recent law enforcement operation that took down the LabHost phishing service has raised some questions about the “mainstreaming” of cyber crime, as the London police found that young university students with no prior record of hacking or online criminal activity were among the suspects that were rounded up.
The law enforcement operation on BlackCat/ALPHV is one of asset seizures without arrests. BlackCat has been defiant thus far, appearing to retake its public-facing Tor sites and swearing to unleash a new campaign of attacks that will include critical infrastructure and hospitals.
Ragnar Locker’s dark web site is offline as nine servers were taken during law enforcement raids in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. A 35 year old Czech man was arrested following the seizure.
Established in 2007, the Qakbot malware botnet finally met its end in August at the hands of a joint operation spearheaded by the FBI and involving numerous other law enforcement agencies throughout Europe.
One of the biggest dark web markets for trading in stolen identity information is now offline thanks to an international law enforcement operation that involved hundreds of raids across 17 countries.
Hive ransomware infrastructure is under FBI control. In tandem with several other agencies around the world, an international law enforcement operation has seized servers and obtained the group’s decryption keys.