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Raids by International Law-Enforcement Confiscate C&C Infrastructures, Sinkhole 830,000 Domains


A global syndicate of security companies and agencies of law-enforcement within one coordinated effort has dismantled a botnet that for most years during the current decade carried out phishing scams while served no less than seventeen distinct malware families thereby victimizing innumerable people. Officials of law enforcement confiscated command-and-control (C&C) infrastructures while acquired hold over 800,000+ Web-domains, which the botnet known as "Avalanche" used within its operations starting late 2009 if not earlier.

The syndicate comprising USA's Office of Attorney in-charge of the Pennsylvania district in the west, the Pittsburgh Division of Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the U.S Department of Justice's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Unit, together with the Office of Public Prosecutor, Verden, Germany's Lunenburg Police, The Hague, Holland situated Eurojust and Europol, as well as prosecutors and investigators from over 40 nations, worked closely in the dismantling operation, officials of the Justice Department stated.

Meanwhile according to National Cyber-Crime Division's Mike Hulett of NCA, Avalanche's massive scale of fraudulence was beyond expectation. However, the degree of response from international law enforcement surpassed previous responses because the agencies targeted 20 different kinds of malicious programs along with over 800,000 domains in a single day.

Hulett continued that unluckily, Avalanche's dismantling did not sanitize PCs which already contracted malware, therefore even as the cyber-crooks kept digging around, definitely for restoring their activities, PC operators required utilizing the opportunity for loading anti-virus software while ensuring they remained protected.

The latest searches confiscated 39 servers while disconnected 221 more from the Internet. The raids occurred in 37 premises, with precisely 830,000 malevolent domains closed. Cops discovered twenty strains of malicious software infecting the network, in particular, Goznym. Theregister.co.uk posted this, December 1, 2016.

Chief Security Researcher Catalin Cosoi of Romania-based security firm Bitdefender said Operation Avalanche was only a beginning, as he participated in the investigation. He indicated that there would be many more gigantic takedown operations similar to Avalanche throughout next year (2017).

The DoJ stated it would provide more details regarding Avalanche's dismantling, in general, as also to many victims from Western Pennsylvania who encountered the botnet's malware assaults, early coming week.

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