Feds dismantle Qakbot malware in biggest US-led takedown

Qakbot malware dismantled overview: 

• Who: The Federal Bureau of Investigations and Justice Department announced they have taken down the malware and botnet known as Qakbot. 
• Why: A multinational operation involving a total of seven countries was conducted to dismantle Qakbot, according to federal authorities. 
• Where: Nationwide. 

Federal authorities announced last week that they have successfully completed a multinational operation to disrupt and dismantle the malware and botnet known as Qakbot, representing one of the largest such takedowns in U.S. history. 

The dismantling of Qakbot took place in the U.S., France, Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., Latvia, and Romania, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Justice Department. 

“The FBI neutralized this far-reaching criminal supply chain, cutting it off at the knees,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. 

The FBI said Qakbot malware was created in 2008 and has since caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to both individuals and businesses in the U.S. as well as abroad. 

Victims of Qakbot malware include financial institutions on the East Coast, a medical device manufacturer on the West Coast and an infrastructure government contractor in the Midwest, according to Wray. 

Qakbot malware mainly infected computers through spam emails, says FBI 

Qakbot malware worked by infecting a computer primarily through spam emails containing malicious attachments or links, according to the FBI, which said the takedown was one of the largest against a botnet infrastructure used by cybercriminals in U.S. history. 

The FBI said it was able to gain lawful access to Qakbot’s infrastructure as part of its operation, and in doing so found it had infected more than 700,000 computers around the world, including more than 200,000 in the US. 

“This botnet provided cybercriminals like these with a command-and-control infrastructure consisting of hundreds of thousands of computers used to carry out attacks against individuals and businesses all around the globe,” Wray said. 

The FBI was ultimately able to dismantle Qakbot by redirecting traffic from the botnet to a server controlled by the Bureau that then instructed computers infected with the malware to download an uninstaller file, which untethered them from the botnet, according to the agency. 

“The cyber threat facing our nation is growing more dangerous and complex every day. But our success proves that our own network and our own capabilities are more powerful,” Wray said. 

In other news involving cybercrime, the Justice Department announced in May that it disrupted a cyber espionage operation that was being orchestrated by agents with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. 

Has your computer ever been infected with malware? Let us know in the comments! 

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