Eurojust, FBI, and other agencies join forces to take down two major data-stealing malware rings

In context: An infostealer is simply a vulnerable shape of malware designed to exfiltrate personification information and utilization it for further malicious campaigns. Eurojust and respective different enforcement agencies precocious took down 2 salient data-stealing trojans successful this family. Investigators said this is only nan opening of a far-reaching operation.

A world enforcement action known arsenic "Operation Magnus" took down RedLine and Meta, 2 lines of infostealer malware that scammed millions of victims worldwide. An world conjugation of agencies from nan Netherlands, US, Belgium, Portugal, United Kingdom, and Australia called "Eurojust" took down nan 2 malware rings. Authorities made respective arrests and seized servers, which they will usage to drawback and prosecute others progressive successful nan racket.

Eurojust notes that RedLine and Meta operators stole monolithic amounts of personification information, including credentials, beingness and email addresses, telephone numbers, cryptocurrency wallets, and cookies. The cyber-gangs sold nan information to different criminals, adopting a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) business exemplary and offering their "goods" done notorious criminal marketplaces.

Eurojust initiated Operation Magnus aft an unnamed information institution notified authorities astir forbidden servers located successful nan Netherlands. Investigators subsequently discovered complete 1,200 servers successful dozens of countries hosting nan malware and were capable to "quickly" speech accusation astir nan threat acknowledgment to nan Eurojust interagency partnership.

Operation Magnus struck nan cyber-criminals down connected October 28 pinch a worldwide sting that took down 3 servers successful nan Netherlands. International rule enforcement agencies, which see European and US organizations specified arsenic nan FBI and nan IRS, seized domain names and arrested 2 group successful Belgium. The cognition is ongoing.

The US Justice Department charged Maxim Rudometov arsenic 1 of nan developers and administrators of nan RedLine infostealer. The DoJ said that Rudometov regularly accessed and managed nan malware infrastructure. He had aggregate cryptocurrency accounts and was straight progressive pinch laundering payments from RedLine "customers." He now faces a maximum punishment of 35 years, though nan FBI will still request to beryllium nan lawsuit successful court.

Additionally, authorities now person entree to RedLine and Meta servers and person acquired nan root codification of some malware families. The investigators obtained a elaborate database of customers doing business pinch nan 2 MaaS services, and they are now "looking forward" to getting successful touch pinch each of them.