Emotet Botnet Returns After Law Enforcement Mass-Uninstall Operation

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: The Emotet malware botnet is back up and running once again almost ten months after an international law enforcement operation took down its command and control servers earlier this year in January. The comeback is surprising because after taking over Emotet's server infrastructure, law enforcement officials also orchestrated a mass-uninstall of the malware from all infected computers on April 25, effectively wiping out the entire botnet across the internet. [O]ver the weekend, security researcher Luca Ebach said he spotted that another malware botnet named TrickBot was helping the Emotet gang get back on its feet by installing the Emotet malware on systems that had been previously infected with TrickBot. "We used to call this Operation ReachAround back when Emotet was dropped by Trickbot in the past," a spokesperson for Cryptolaemus, a group of security researchers who tracked Emotet in the past, told The Record today. [...] Cryptolaemus said that right now, the Emotet gang is not sending out any new email spam but relying on the TrickBot gang to help them create an initial footprint of their new botnet incarnation before ramping up spam operations again. But if Emotet's comeback will succeed remains to be seen. It would be very hard for Emotet to reach its previous size any time in the coming months; however, the malware strain itself remains a very sophisticated and capable threat that shouldn't be ignored.

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