U.S. Hacks Qak Bot, Quietly Removes Botnet Infections
Summary: The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI announced an international operation dubbed "Duck Hunt" that seized control of the QakBot botnet's infrastructure and instructed infected Windows computers to uninstall the malware. Investigators said QakBot had infected more than 700,000 machines in the past year, including 200,000 in the United States, and was implicated in 40 ransomware attacks over 18 months that cost victims more than $58 million.
Key Takeaway: The operation recovered more than 6.5 million stolen passwords and credentials, and the government noted the uninstall file did not remediate other malware already on infected machines, leaving prior intrusions in place.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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