Police coordinated by the European Union’s justice and police agencies have taken down computer networks responsible for spreading ransomware via infected emails, in what they called the biggest-ever international operation against the lucrative form of cybercrime.
The European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, said Thursday that police arrested four “high value” suspects, took down more than 100 servers and seized control of over 2,000 internet domains.
The huge takedown this week, codenamed Endgame, involved coordinated action in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Ukraine, the United States and United Kingdom, Eurojust said. Also, three suspects were arrested in Ukraine and one in Armenia. Searches were carried out in Ukraine, Portugal, the Netherlands and Armenia, EU police agency Europol added.
It is the latest international operation aimed at disrupting malware and ransomware operations. It followed a massive takedown in 2021 of a botnet called Emotet, Eurojust said. A botnet is a network of hijacked computers typically used for malicious activity.
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