Avast helps French police annihilate dangerous Retadup virus

French police in the assistance of an anti-virus company gained hold over a server which cyber-criminals used for disseminating a virus designed for collecting crypto-currency via infecting over 850,000 PCs. The AV Company, Avast assisted the National Gendarmerie cyber-crime agency in France, while declared the operation August 28, 2019.

It was during the spring when Avast alerted the digital crime-combating agency namely Cyber-crime Fighting Centre (C3N) of France about a probable private server functioning to dispatch a virus known as Retadup targeting innumerable PCs running Windows operating system, across more than hundred countries but chiefly within South and Central America.

As per officials, the virus would come through an electronic mail that offered erotic pictures or easy money as it would contaminate USB drives. At the time, hackers managed using the virus for regulating PCs remotely; generating the Monero crypto-currency; extorting funds via ransomware attacks; as also seizing data stored on systems in Israeli hospitals along with databases of Israeli patients.

It is reported that those running the Retadup network of bots have churned euros counting to millions from the time of the botnet's establishment during 2016 and continuing to do so. www.bbc.com posted this dated August 28, 2019.

Previously during 2019, security experts from Avast while actively monitoring botnet Retadup's activities, unearthed one design flaw inside the command-and-control protocol of the malware which if exploited would help eliminate the virus from the victimized PCs devoid of necessitating any additional code.

But that's possible to do if researchers acquire hold of Retadup's CnC server that received hosting service from a provider based inside Ile-de-France region inside France's north-central area. Hence, Avast's researchers called on C3N during March end 2019, informed about their findings, while made a proposal of one secret plan that would completely destroy the Retadup virus thereby facilitating protection of victims.

In the meantime, Jean-Dominique Nollet, chief of C3N during a talk which France Inter radio broadcasted highlighted how efforts of his team proved significant. According to him, 850,000 infected PCs meant huge firepower, sufficient for crashing the entire number of websites that civilians accessed across the globe.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/4/2019