Hundreds of C&C servers were disrupted in an operation involving law enforcement and several cybersecurity companies.

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Authorities on Thursday disrupted a botnet, a malware framework and seized infrastructure that Evil Corp and other cybercrime groups used to steal data and break into various networks.

The globally coordinated effort targeted SocGholish, multi-stage malware that has compromised websites, redirected users to traffic distribution systems (TDS) and slipped malware into their networks since 2017.

“The malware establishes an initial foothold into victim computers, collectively known as a botnet, and is then used by threat actors for further targeting with ransomware campaigns and espionage,” the FBI’s cyber division said in a statement. 

Cybersecurity firms, researchers and officials from the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Europol took down 106 servers and remediated nearly 15,000 sites that were infected with the malware. Officials also disabled the botnet and notified victims.

Sites infected with SocGholish, which are primarily hosted on WordPress, were widespread and provided everyday services including restaurants and auto repair shops, according to the Dutch National Police. 

The botnet, also known as “FakeUpdates,” is linked to the Russian cybercrime group Evil Corp. It also provided initial access to other ransomware variants, including DoppelPaymer, WastedLoocker, Hades Ransomware, LockBit, RansomHub and others, according to Infoblox, which participated in the takedown. 

Proofpoint, which also participated in the disruption, described Evil Corp as one of the most prominent cybercrime groups in operation and the “grandfather” of a threat type that compromises websites and uses TDS to redirect users to malware.

Following the takedown, the FBI issued a public service announcement warning about cybercriminals using TDS to break into victim networks for ransomware or other financial scams. 

Cybercriminals redirect traffic from sites to bypass firewalls, obscure their activity, identify potential victims and send them to phishing pages to steal credentials, initiate financial scams, access networks, deliver other malware, and sell access to other cybercriminals, officials said.

The law enforcement action was part of Operation Endgame, a multinational effort targeting cybercrime since 2024, and more narrowly for the FBI part of Operation Riptide, an ongoing campaign targeting cybercriminals and the infrastructure and financial networks they use to commit fraud.

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Authorities in Europe arrested 29 alleged cybercriminals and took down more than 27,000 illegal streaming URLs that pirated major sporting events, films and TV programming, Europol said Wednesday.

The continent-wide collaboration, led by Bulgaria and the European Union’s police agency, allowed authorities to dismantle nine organized crime groups supporting the illicit streaming networks, officials said. “Operation Kratos 2” focused on disrupting the networks’ underlying infrastructure and stretched for seven months before coming to a close in April. 

Officials did not name the suspects, groups or services targeted during the crackdown, but noted that investigators identified key players responsible for managing and operating the piracy platforms.

Europol said the streaming sites infringed on nearly 850,000 media across 169 domains. 

“What appears to consumers as cheap access to premium content is powered by complex criminal enterprises,” the agency said in a news release. Illegal streaming site operators host separate servers for customer-facing websites and illegal content, and distribute their services across multiple countries.

During the course of the operation, officials conducted 148 house searches, identified 86 suspects and referred 59 cases to courts for criminal proceedings. 

Investigators also worked with private-sector partners to identify nearly 4,400 new domains and more than 18,000 IP addresses linked to piracy and other illegal activity. Those efforts allowed authorities to report almost 400,000 additional URLs for suspension or removal. 

Live sports piracy networks are widespread and consistently tracked by antipiracy coalitions and authorities globally. Authorities in Egypt last year shut down Streameast, the most popular and largest illegal live sports streaming network at the time, with an operation that spanned 80 domains and logged more than 1.6 billion visits during the year prior.

Operation Kratos 2 was supported by anti-piracy associations, UEFA Europa League, La Liga, beIN Media Group and officials from Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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European authorities took down a prominent virtual private network service and arrested the alleged administrator behind an operation that cybercriminals used to steal data, commit fraud and ransomware attacks, Europol said Thursday. 

First VPN, which was promoted on Russian-speaking cybercrime forums, gained popularity for providing services that allowed users to hide their infrastructure and identities. Officials said the service was entrenched in the cybercrime world and appeared in almost every major recent cybercrime investigation aided by Europol.

“For years, cybercriminals saw this VPN service as a gateway to anonymity,” Edvardas Šileris, head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, said in a statement. 

“They believed it would keep them beyond the reach of law enforcement,” Šileris added. “This operation proves them wrong. Taking it offline removes a critical layer of protection that criminals depended on to operate, communicate and evade law enforcement.”

The operation stretched over two days earlier this week, led by France and the Netherlands, with support from Europol, Eurojust and eight additional countries. 

Authorities said they arrested the alleged administrator and searched their residence in Ukraine, but declined to name the person. Officials also dismantled 33 servers linked to the service and seized multiple domains, including 1vpns.com, 1vpns.net and 1vpns.org.

Investigators obtained First VPN’s user database and identified VPN connections used by alleged cybercriminals. Intelligence gathered during the operation uncovered thousands of users linked to cybercrime and formed additional leads connected to ransomware attacks and fraud schemes, officials said. 

Europol said First VPN’s users were notified of the shutdown and warned that their identities are now known to authorities. 

French and Dutch authorities started investigating First VPN in earnest in November 2023 and shared evidence with 16 countries to coordinate data analysis and support other ongoing investigations. Officials across multiple jurisdictions are using intelligence gathered during the operation to aid 21 additional inquiries globally.

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Authorities from 21 countries took down 53 domains and arrested four people allegedly involved in distributed denial-of-service operations used by more than 75,000 cybercriminals, Europol said Thursday. 

The globally coordinated effort dubbed “Operation PowerOFF” disrupted booter services and seized and dismantled infrastructure, including servers and databases, that supported the DDoS-for-hire services, officials said.

Law enforcement agencies obtained data on more than 3 million alleged criminal user accounts from the seized databases, and ultimately sent more than 75,000 emails and letters to participants, warning them to halt their activities.

Officials from the countries involved in the operation also served 25 search warrants, removed more than 100 URLs advertising DDoS-for-hire services in search engine results and created search engine ads to target young people searching for DDoS-for-hire tools.

The operation, which is ongoing, primarily targets IP stressors or DDoS booters that cybercriminals use to inundate websites, servers and networks with junk traffic, rendering legitimate services inaccessible. 

Officials described DDoS-for-hire tools as prolific and easily accessible, often including tutorials that allow non-tech savvy people to initiate attacks on various organizations.

“Attacks are often regionally focused, with users targeting servers and websites within their continent, and directed at a wide range of targets including online marketplaces, telecommunications providers and other web-based services,” Europol said in a news release. “Motivations vary from curiosity to ideological purposes linked to hacktivism, as well as financial gain through extortion or the disruption of competitors’ services.”

Operation PowerOFF is supported by multiple law enforcement agencies from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Thailand.

The international crackdown disrupted other popular DDoS-for-hire services in late 2024, netting three arrests and 27 domain takedowns. Authorities in Poland in May arrested four alleged administrators of DDoS-for-hire tools that cybercriminals used to launch thousands of attacks from 2022 to 2025.

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Authorities from multiple countries dismantled SocksEscort, a residential proxy network cybercriminals used to commit large-scale fraud, claiming access to about 369,000 IP addresses since 2020, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Europol, which aided the investigation alongside various law enforcement agencies, Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs and the Shadowserver Foundation, said the malicious proxy service compromised routers and IoT devices in 163 countries. Officials said the proxy network’s payment platform received about $5.8 million from its customers.

The globally coordinated action, dubbed Operation Lightning, took down and seized 34 domains and 23 servers in seven countries. U.S. officials froze a combined $3.5 million in cryptocurrency allegedly linked to the botnet that was created from infected devices.

“Cybercrime thrives on anonymity,” Catherine De Bolle, executive director at Europol, said in a statement. “Proxy services like SocksEscort provide criminals with the digital cover they need to launch attacks, distribute illegal content and evade detection.”

SocksEscort’s operators assembled the botnet by exploiting a vulnerability in residential modems from an unnamed vendor, according to officials.

The cybercrime operation defrauded Americans and U.S. businesses of millions of dollars, the Justice Department said. More than one-quarter of the 8,000 infected routers SocksEscort advertised in February were based in the United States.  

SocksEscort began operating in 2009 and its command-and-control infrastructure went undetected by most tools for a very long time, Ryan English, information security engineer at Black Lotus Labs, told CyberScoop.

The botnet’s infrastructure, which was powered by AVRecon malware, was elusive and maintained a consistently high volume, claiming an average 20,000 victims weekly since early 2024. Its impact peaked in January 2025 when it ensnared more than 15,000 victims daily, according to Black Lotus Labs’ research. 

The company said it observed 280,000 unique IPs as victims of the proxy network since early 2025, and more than half of SocksEscort’s victims were based in the United States and United Kingdom.

“Given the high volume of victim generation, it would not surprise me if they eventually hit something really important that moved them up the list of networks to go after,” Chris Formosa, senior lead information security engineer at Black Lotus Labs, told CyberScoop. 

“They were exclusively marketing to cybercriminals and nowhere else,” he added. “With a network like this, once law enforcement gains legal access to backend infrastructure it can give them a lot of intelligence on other threat actors besides the botnet operators.”

Various agencies from Austria, Bulgaria, Eurojust, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Romania assisted in the investigation and takedown.

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