Police take down three cybercrime operatives in ‘whack-a-mole’ round

An international coalition of law enforcement agencies led by Europol targeted and captured three cybercrime operations in the latest round of what authorities called “.”

In a press releaseEuropol said the police operation was targeted Infostedaling malware Rhadamanthys, a botnet called Elysium, and the remote access Trojan Venomrat. Authorities said all three “play a major role in international cybercrime.” Police seized more than 1,000 servers as part of the operation.

Europol said police arrested an unnamed “prime suspect” of “venomrat” in Greece on November 3.

“The malware infrastructure that was dismantled consisted of hundreds of thousands of infected computers containing multiple stolen credentials,” the press release said. “Many victims are unaware of the system infection.”

According to Europol, the main suspect behind Rhadamantys has access to more than 100,000 Crypto wallets, “probably worth Euros.”

As an Infosterer, Rhadamantys is designed to steal various types of information from infected devices, including passwords and Cryptocurency Wallet keys. Rhadamantys spiked in popularity in October after the ruling take down the popular infosstealer lumma Prior to the year, it showed that takedowns, criminals adapted using different hacking tools that may be less known at the time.

When Rhadamantys was launched in 2022, it initially depended on the spread of dangerous Google advertising, and later thanks to underground words, according to an underground spokesperson, one of the lumen industry spokespersons in Operation.

Assertive wrote in a blog post Rhadamantys had a “dramatic uptick” and a “consensual increase in the number of victims” after the Lumma Takedown, making it “the largest inware-stealer malware by volume.” As of October, Infosteler has compromised more than 12,000 victims, according to the firm.

Ryan English, a researcher at the Black Lobe Lab, told TechCrunhts that Rhadamantys “emerged as the ‘Next’ Go-to Infosteler” after Lumma went down.

“We know that other people are going to take their place, so we’re keeping track to see who shows up,” English said, adding that law enforcement and the wider industry can only do so. ”

“So with real sense, so whack-a-mole forever,” said England.