Emotet, one of the most dangerous malware in the world was taken down through international collaboration.

The operation was carried out with authorities in Netherlands, Germany, United States, the UK, France, Lithuania, Canada, and Ukraine, and with the coordination by Europol and Eurojust.

The widescale malware takedown was reported by Europol last Wednesday. Emotet is known to have infected more than one million computer systems around the world.

All infected machines are now being redirected to servers controlled by global authorities.

As part of an international criminal investigation, the Dutch police have seized data from Emotet, which contains email addresses, usernames, and passwords that are in the possession of cybercriminals. People can check if their emails have been compromised by Emotet by the Emotet Checker.

How Does Emotet Work?

Emotet bot sends multiple spam emails to users with infected email attachments. Opening these attachments will lead to an instant infection. These malicious attachments are disguised as invoices, shipping notices, and recently about COVID-19.

Once the user opens the malicious documents,  They are lured to click “enable macros” so that the malicious code can run and install the Emotet malware.

Silver lining

Starting March 25, 2021 at midnight, the Emotet malware will remove itself from the infected devices, a move by the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) federal police.

Credits to @milkr3am