Andromeda Botnet dismantled after the joint investigation with law enforcement agencies around the Globe.The takedown took place on 29 November 2017, Andromeda knew as Gamarue, and ESET detected it as Win32/TrojanDownloader.Wauchos.
FBI started their initial investigation in 2015 and worked closely with Microsoft in this; Andromeda spread through exploit kits or spam emails. It involves in Financial crimes, data exfiltration and it also has more than 80 Malware families to infect victim machine.
Avalanche was taken one year before on 30 November 2016, the insights that gathered with Avalanche case was shared among the law enforcement agencies, and it supported them in dismantling Andromeda.
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Wauchos mainly used to steal credentials, and it installs some other malware on the compromised machine. It is a modular malware which means we can expand its function by installing additional plugins.
The truly global nature of this threat is also seen in the diversity of the command and control servers its operators use. Throughout our monitoring of this threat, we were able to discover dozens of Wauchos’s C&C servers every month, says ESET.
Andromeda Author Arrested – Andromeda Botnet
Joint investigation partners raised actions against servers and domains that spreading Andromeda malware, they identified more than 1500 domains and subject them for DNS sinkholing(Redirection method from its original destination to the location provided by sinkhole owners).
During their analysis, they observed more than 2 million unique IP’s from 223 countries connected to sinkhole within 48 hours.Technical details Published by ESET.
With the continued investigation FBI suspected Belarus, and the investigators seized storage media and data systems, they have also shut down 7 C2 servers that used to spread malware in 6 different countries, and 1,500 domains.
Steven Wilson, the Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre: “This is another example of international law enforcement working together with industry partners to tackle the most significant cybercriminals.
