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The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it had participated in an operation with Germany and Canada to dismantle the infrastructures used by four major botnet networks that infected more than 3 million devices worldwide, including hundreds of thousands in the United States.
The malicious networks – Aisuru, KimWolf, JackSkid, and Mossad – were used to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, including against defense ministry websites, the Justice Department said.
Most infected devices were part of the Internet of Things, meaning web-connected devices such as webcams, digital video recorders, or Wi-Fi routers, the Justice Department said. Botnet operators conducted hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks, targeting computers and servers worldwide, including IP addresses belonging to the defense ministry information network. In some cases, they demanded payments from their victims, according to the statement.
“Today’s dismantling of four powerful botnet networks underscores our commitment to eliminate new cyber threats facing the defense department and its fighters,” said Kenneth DeChellis, special agent in charge of the defense department’s investigation service.
The operation, conducted simultaneously in the United States, Germany, and Canada, targeted individuals behind the botnet networks, the Justice Department said.
The statement mentioned nearly two dozen major technology companies that contributed to the operation, including Amazon Web Services, Google, PayPal, and Nokia, as well as the Europol’s PowerOff team of the European law enforcement agency, whose operation against cybercriminals focusing on DDoS attacks has been ongoing since 2017.
