Media Coverage

American and British police have managed to stop a massive hacking operation that infected computers worldwide, stealing at least $10 million from the United States alone.

EC3, NCA, FBI and a range of other bodies have targeted the Dridex banking malware, including using a sinkhole operation to sever communications between infected botnets and their controlling cyber-criminals.

On Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors announced a victory in the war on malware. American and British police have managed to stop a massive hacking operation that infected computers worldwide, stealing at least $10 million from the United States alone. Law enforcement — with the help of several cybersecurity firms — took control of a network of machines that distributed malicious software known as “Bugat,” “Cridex” or “Dridex.”

Joint efforts by law-enforcement agencies in the US and UK have crippled an eastern European gang behind the bank credential-stealing botnet known as Dridex.

The FBI has teamed up with security vendors to disrupt the operations of Dridex banking Trojan. Multiple command-and-control (C&C) servers used by the Dridex Trojan have been taken down and seized in a co-ordinated action after the FBI obtained court orders. The take-down operation is geared towards crippling the malware’s control network, which is used to upload stolen information to crooks behind the network as well as pushing instructions and software configuration to zombie nodes on the botnet. Attack traffic is being re-routed towards sinkholes under the control of an organisation called The Shadowserver Foundation.

A strain of malware called Dridex has been making Eastern European cybercriminals a significant amount of money in recent years. But a spanner has been thrust into their machinations by a global law enforcement action announced today that saw one significant arrest and an attempt to dismantle the crook’s infrastructure.

Attackers have installed malicious firmware on nearly 200 Cisco routers used by businesses from over 30 countries, according to Internet scans performed by cybercrime fighters at the Shadowserver Foundation.

Previously, cyber security firm FireEye reported that only 14 Cisco routers of companies in India, Philippines, Mexico, and the Ukraine were infected with the malware. Monday’s report by the Shadowserver Foundation, however, shows that compromised routers can now be found in 31 countries, with 65 of the devices located in the United States.

SA government, Shadowserver Foundation and Let’s Encrypt recognised for contributions to cyber security