{"id":34838,"date":"2023-08-29T17:03:38","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T17:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/29\/fbi-operation-tricked-thousands-of-computers-infected-by-qakbot-into-uninstalling-the-malware-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2023-08-29T17:03:38","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T17:03:38","slug":"fbi-operation-tricked-thousands-of-computers-infected-by-qakbot-into-uninstalling-the-malware-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/29\/fbi-operation-tricked-thousands-of-computers-infected-by-qakbot-into-uninstalling-the-malware-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI operation tricked thousands of computers infected by Qakbot into uninstalling the malware | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A U.S. government operation has dismantled the\u00a0<\/span>infrastructure of the notorious Qakbot<\/a> malware, which officials say caused \u201chundreds of millions\u201d of dollars of damage worldwide.<\/p>\n

In an announcement on Tuesday, the FBI said that it had successfully \u201cdisrupted and dismantled\u201d the Qakbot malware, and had identified more than 700,000 infected computers worldwide \u2014 including more than 200,000 in the United States.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice also announced<\/a> the seizure of more than $8.6 million in cryptocurrency from the Qakbot cybercriminal organization, which will now be made available to victims.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The operation, which was carried out in partnership with law enforcement agencies in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Latvia, and the United Kingdom, is described as the largest U.S.-led financial and technical disruption of a botnet infrastructure leveraged by cybercriminals to commit ransomware, financial fraud, and other cyber-enabled criminal activity.<\/p>\n

To dismantle the botnet, the FBI gained lawful access to Qakbot\u2019s infrastructue and redirected Qakbot traffic to FBI-controlled servers, which instructed infected computers to download an uninstaller file. This uninstaller was created by law enforcement to untether the victims\u2019 computers from the Qakbot botnet, preventing further installation of malware through Qakbot.<\/p>\n

During this operation, named \u201cOperation Duck Hunt,\u201d the FBI said it recovered the stolen credentials \u2014 including email addresses and passwords \u2014 of more than 6.5 million victims, adding that its international partners identified \u201cmillions more\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Qakbot, also known as \u201cQBot\u201d and \u201cQuakBot,\u201d was first detected in 2007, and has in recent years become the botnet of choice for some of the most infamous ransomware gangs, including Conti, ProLock, Egregor, REvil, MegaCortex, and Black Basta.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These ransomware gangs received approximately $58 million in ransom payments between October 2021 and April 2023, according to the FBI, and racked up numerous victims, including healthcare providers and government agencies.<\/p>\n

According to today\u2019s announcement, these victims include a power engineering firm based in Illinois; financial services organizations based in Alabama, Kansas, and Maryland; a defense manufacturer based in Maryland; and a food distribution company in Southern California.<\/p>\n

More to come\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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A U.S. government operation has dismantled the\u00a0infrastructure of the notorious Qakbot malware, which officials say caused \u201chundreds of millions\u201d of dollars of damage worldwide. In an announcement on Tuesday, the FBI said that it had successfully \u201cdisrupted and dismantled\u201d the Qakbot malware, and had identified more than 700,000 infected computers worldwide \u2014 including more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}