"Google Won a Lawsuit Against the Glupteba Botnet Operators"

Google has announced the successful conclusion of a nearly year-long legal battle with the Glupteba botnet, a highly sophisticated botnet comprised of millions of compromised Windows devices. Glupteba, unlike other botnets, uses cryptocurrency blockchains as a command-and-control (C2) mechanism to make it more resistant to takeover. The Glupteba malware instructs infected computers to look for the addresses of its C2 servers on the Bitcoin blockchain by referencing transactions associated with specific accounts. The blockchain is not centralized, and each transaction is distributed to and viewable by any user on the blockchain. Because of these characteristics, the Glupteba botnet is unusually resistant to disruption. If the botnet's C2 servers are disabled, its operators can simply create new servers and broadcast their addresses to the blockchain. Google won the lawsuit filed against two Russian nationals involved in the botnet's operations. The court's decision establishes an important legal precedent in the fight against cybercrime. The company's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) shared the actions it took to disrupt the Glupteba botnet's operations in December 2021 and announced it had filed a case against its operators in the Southern District of New York. The US District Court set monetary sanctions on both the Russian defendants and their US-based lawyer, and ordered them to pay Google's legal fees. The sentence is considered significant because it demonstrates that criminals can face monetary penalties for engaging in cybercriminal activities such as this one. Google stated that Glupteba operators have resumed operations using platforms and Internet of Things (IoT) devices not operated by Google. However, the company confirmed that its operation reduced the number of infected hosts by 78 percent. This article continues to discuss Google winning a lawsuit against the Glupteba botnet operators

Security Affairs reports "Google Won a Lawsuit Against the Glupteba Botnet Operators"