Law enforcement agencies in the United States, Nederlands, Germany and other nations dismantled a criminal network called Avalanche
Agencies involved include United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the FBI, United States Department of Justice, the Luneburg Police of Germany, Europol and Eurojust along with investigators and prosecutors from more than 40 countries, according to the Justice Department.
The Avalanche network, which has been operating since at least 2010, is estimated to involve hundreds of thousands of infected computers worldwide. The monetary losses associated with malware attacks conducted over the Avalanche network are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide, although exact calculations are difficult due to the high number of malware families present on the network.
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice said that Europol seized, “sinkholed,” or blocked more than 800,000 Web domains used by malware as command and control centers and “confiscated over 30 servers, and put offline more than 220 servers via abuse notification protocols.”
The Avalanche network,, according to a joint Eurojust – Europol press release” was used as a delivery platform to launch and manage mass global malware attacks and money mule recruiting campaigns.” The European agency said that the criminal network has caused more than $6 million “in damages in concentrated cyberattacks on online banking systems in Germany alone.