Huge Avalanche botnet taken down
On 30 November, after more than four years of investigation, global authorities dismantled an international criminal infrastructure platform known as Avalanche.
The operation was a joint effort between Europol, the US Attorney’s Office, the FBI, Eurojust, and global partners.
The Avalanche network was used as a delivery platform to launch and manage mass global malware attacks and money mule recruiting campaigns.
It caused an estimated €6 million in damages in cyberattacks on online banking systems in Germany alone.
In addition, the monetary losses associated with malware attacks conducted over the network are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
The takedown saw five individuals arrested, 37 premises searched, and 39 servers seized.
Victims of malware infections were identified in over 180 countries and 221 servers were put offline through abuse notifications sent to hosting providers.
The operation marks the largest-ever use of sinkholing to combat botnet infrastructures – with over 800,000 domains seized, sinkholed, or blocked.
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