Four people arrested in large-scale European raid on malware network

BERLIN (Reuters) – Four people were arrested and more than 100 Internet servers were paralyzed or disrupted as part of an internationally coordinated operation against the cyber infrastructure used for malware, the European law enforcement agency Europol said on Thursday.

Europol described the operation, which was carried out between May 27 and 29, as “the largest operation ever against botnets that play a key role in the spread of ransomware.”

Operation Endgame was initiated and led by France, Germany and the Netherlands. A number of other countries, including the UK, the US and Ukraine, were involved, Europol said in a statement.

“With the largest international cyber police operation to date, law enforcement authorities have dealt a significant blow to the cybercrime scene,” said Martina Link, vice president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, in a separate statement.

The arrests took place in Armenia and Ukraine, it said. More than 2,000 domains are now under the control of law enforcement authorities.

Malware allows cybercriminals to secretly gain access to other people’s computers for malicious purposes.

According to investigators, one of the main suspects earned at least 69 million euros (74.5 million dollars) in cryptocurrency by renting out locations of criminal infrastructure to deploy ransomware.

(1 US dollar = 0.9268 euros)

(Reporting by Rachel More; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)