At a glance.
- Europol operation shutters botnet infrastructure.
- Alleged Ticketmaster breach affects 560 million users.
- Google confirms authenticity of leaked Search documents.
Europol operation shutters botnet infrastructure.
Europol yesterday announced a major international law enforcement operation that took down infrastructure used by numerous malware droppers, including IcedID, SystemBC, Pikabot, Smokeloader, Bumblebee, and Trickbot. Europol says it was "the largest ever operation against botnets, which play a major role in the deployment of ransomware." The operation seized more than 100 servers and 2000 domains, and resulted in the arrests of four suspects in Ukraine and Armenia.
Europol added, "[I]t has been discovered through the investigations so far that one of the main suspects has earned at least EUR 69 million in cryptocurrency by renting out criminal infrastructure sites to deploy ransomware. The suspect’s transactions are constantly being monitored and legal permission to seize these assets upon future actions has already been obtained."
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Alleged Ticketmaster breach affects 560 million users.
The ShinyHunters cybercriminal group claims to have breached ticket sales giant Ticketmaster and stolen data belonging to more than 560 million customers, CBS News reports. The gang says the data include "full names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and order history information including ticket purchase details and Ticketmaster event information." The group is selling the 1.3 terabytes of data for $500,000.
Ticketmaster hasn't yet confirmed the breach, but the BBC reports that the Australian government is working with Ticketmaster to investigate the incident.
Google confirms authenticity of leaked Search documents.
Google has confirmed the authenticity of a trove of 2,500 leaked internal documents detailing the company's search algorithm, the Verge reports. Google spokesperson Davis Thompson told the Verge, "We would caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information. We’ve shared extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors that our systems weigh, while also working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation." The Verge says "[t]he leaked material suggests that Google collects and potentially uses data that company representatives have said does not contribute to ranking webpages in Google Search, like clicks, Chrome user data, and more."
