A coordinated law enforcement operation, in partnership with private sector companies, including Bitdefender, Bitsight, ESET, and Microsoft, has resulted in the takedown of criminal infrastructure powering Amadey and StealC.
"The main common goal was to disrupt the 'assembly lines' cybercriminals use to launch ransomware, financial fraud, and attacks on critical infrastructure," Europol said in a statement.
The development comes days after authorities from the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, and the U.S. disrupted malicious infrastructure associated with SocGholish and cleaned up nearly 15,000 infected WordPress websites.
As part of the two-week-long action, cryptocurrency assets of criminal origin valued at more than $47 million have been identified, flagged, and restricted from use. In addition, as many as 27 million stolen login credentials have been recovered, and the malware distribution network has been hindered by dismantling 326 servers and 142 domains.
"This takedown is a powerful demonstration of what public and private sector collaboration can achieve in dismantling the infrastructure that enables cybercrime at scale," Alex Cosoi, chief security strategist at Bitdefender, said in a statement. "It also sends a clear message to those behind malware ecosystems: no matter how sophisticated the tools or how distributed the network, coordinated international action will find them."
