U.S. authorities have revealed that they successfully disrupted Russian…
U.S. authorities have revealed that they successfully disrupted Russian cybercriminal devices built around Cyclops Blink malware to make a botnet
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has said that it disrupted thousands of routers and firewall devices belonging to Russian military threat actors by targeting the same infrastructures that the cybercriminals were using to connect with the machines.
U.S. authorities made the announcement that explicated the extent to which they had managed to thwart a possible future cyber disaster. As such, the investigators succeeded to effectively prevent Russian hackers from mobilizing the compromised systems into a botnet.
Additional reports intimate that the affected botnet was being controlled by the hackers using a malware called Cyclops Blink, which the UK National Cybersecurity Center had analyzed in a February 2022 Malware Analysis Report.
U.S. authorities had also noted the role of Cyclops Blink in enabling Russian cybercrime, which would present itself in cases where Moscow’s military intelligence would deploy hacking teams to carry out various cyberattacks.
Various independent cybersecurity analysts believe that Cyclops Blink was created with the intention of hijacking the devices manufactured by WatchGuard Technologies Inc. as well as those made by ASUSTek Computer Inc.
The Place of Botnets in International Cybercrime
Quite obviously, botnets have become a critical element in global cybercrime as threat actors leverage their power to transmit malware, ransomware packages and other forms of cyber threats.
The dark web, in specific, has played the key role in promoting the botnet trade by acting as a breeding ground where botnet enterprises thrive. This has been well enabled by an innovative botnet commerce model where some threat actors use the hidden web to lease out collections of controlled devices to other hackers.
What’s more, the botnet economy has evolved to accommodate event the less tech savvy threat actors – past botnet activities were the preserve of highly specialized IT gurus. Today, you can simply access dark web tutorials where you’ll learn about how to make money using botnets.
The infected devices within a cybercriminal’s botnet establishment are typically used to distribute phishing emails and harmful software to victim computer systems.
