Global police shut down malware group ‘targeting millions’

A global police operation shut down the servers of one of the world’s largest malware platforms that targeted millions of victims, the EU’s judicial arm said on Tuesday.

“The infostealers taken down … targeted millions of victims worldwide, making it one of the largest malware platforms globally,” Eurojust said in a statement.

“Authorities discovered that over 1,200 servers in dozens of countries were running the malware,” said the agency, which is based in The Hague.

Called “Operation Magnus” investigators shut down three servers in the Netherlands, seized two domains, unsealed charges in the United States and took two people into custody in Belgium, Eurojust said.

The criminal platforms, called RedLine and META stole personal data from infected devices including usernames and passwords as well as automatically saved data like addresses, email addresses and crypto-currency wallets.

“After retrieving the personal data, the infostealers sold the information to other criminals through criminal market places,” Eurojust said.

“The criminals who purchased the personal data used it to steal money, crypto-currency and to carry out follow-on hacking activities,” the agency said.

Eurojust and Dutch police confirmed that the META name used by the malware platform had no link with Meta, the California-based company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Investigations continued and Eurojust said a private security company has set up an online tool for potential victims to check if their data was stolen.

© 2024 AFP