The French authorities dubbed 'Cyber Gendarmes', have terminated a computer network responsible for distributing botnet army of cryptojackers.
Having infected about 850,000 computers across 140 countries with Monero cryptocurrency malware miners, the servers mostly operated from Latin America, but its head was located in France
The French officials managed to track the head pirate server to France. The server that has been operating since 2016, utilized the 'Retadup' virus to infect victims with the cryptojacking malware, install ransomware, as well as stealing personal data, like from Israeli hospitals, among other nefarious acts.
The officials estimated that the malware has at least cost damage worth millions of euros.
After dismantling the network, the officials are moving the virus to unused parts of the web to contain the infections, preventing it to spread any further.
According to Jean-Dominique Nollet, head of the Center for Combating Digital Crime (C3N), in an interview with France Inter Radio:
"People may not realize it, but 850,000 infected computers means massive firepower, enough to bring down all the websites on the planet. Even well-protected institutions were at risk of being paralyzed."
Nollet said that he is letting the server run, at least for a while, so that any infected computers that had not been online for the past few weeks could still be disinfected. But by containing it, the malware should be prevented from spreading any further.
The authorities in France got some help from the FBI in the U.S. to block traffic and direct the containment towards their replica server.
However, Nollet warned that the attackers can simply rerun the attempt because the process can be just as easy as a copy and paste command.
"Unfortunately, we know they can recreate this kind of hacker server at any time," he added.
Cryptojacking malware is a malicious software that aims to mine cryptocurrency using victims' computer system without their consent. This method can be done remotely and secretly, with the victims to be unaware that their computer resources were forced to mine cryptocurrency for the culprit.
This virus was first discovered by Avast, a security company, earlier this 2019.
It was said that the cryptojacking malware spread through emails, promising potential victims money and/or erotic images. Opening the link contained within the email will download the virus. In certain cases, USB drives were used to carry the attack.
Victims were mostly concentrated in Central and South America.
