Etter en pause, administrasjonsserverne til Emotet botnet gjenopptok aktiviteten.
Researchers på Cofense Labs were the first to discover a resurgence of the botnet infrastructure.“Emotet botnet oppsto fra en grav i går og begynte å servere nye binærfiler. Vi la merke til at C2-serverne begynte å levere svar på POST-forespørsler rundt 15:00 EST den august 21. Stay vigilant and keep an eye out for any updates as we monitor for any changes”, – wrote Cofense Labs specialists.
Dess, forskere fra Black Lotus have published a list of active servers.
Emotet was previously known as a banking trojan, but then changed course and turned into a botnet, distributing various types of ransomware.
Emotet is now one of the most dangerous threats in the world. The network is used to distribute the Trickbot banking Trojan and Ryuk ransomware. This combination of malware was called the “triple threat” and was used as part of attacks on state administrations in the United States in July 2019.
Les også: Global Threat Index claimed, that Emotet botnet suspended its activities
Researchers noticed that Emotet operators took a break at the beginning of June and correctly assumed that it would not be for long. No new campaigns were observed since then, and the consensus in the infosec community was that the servers were down for maintenance.
Ifølge eksperter, the servers have just resumed their activity and there have not made any attempts to spread malware. It is assumed that operators need time to restore systems and prepare a new malicious campaign. Security researcher Benkøw provides a tweet-size list of the stages necessary for respawning the malicious activity.
“They reuse the old IPs so they need time to:
– Grab old/new bots
– remove ALL the AV bots from today on the panel lol
– Run some tests for bypassing anti spam product
– Prepare the campaign for the next Clients
etc it takes time”, — wrote Benkøw.
The servers are located in various countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Tyskland, Japan and the USA.
Given the intense activity, experts expect a new malicious campaign in the near future. Ifølge dem, the attackers will adhere to the old ransomware distribution scheme.
