TrickBot Takes Over, After Cops Kneecap Emotet

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A massive malicious spam campaign, along with the global takedown of Emotet, has vaulted the TrickBot trojan to the top of the Check Point’s list of the most popular malware among cybercriminals for February.
 
In January, TrickBot was ranked third on Check Point’s list, and it was fourth overall for 2020, while the No. 1 malware, Emotet, remained ascendant. But following the worldwide law-enforcement effort to take down Emotet in January, cybercriminals have pivoted to TrickBot, the report explained. Both strains are most often used as first-stage loaders for fetching additional malware.
 
“Even when a major threat is removed, there are many others that continue to pose a high risk on networks worldwide, so organizations must ensure they have robust security systems in place to prevent their networks from being compromised and minimize risks,” according to the Check Point report.
 
However, TrickBot hasn’t quite reached the same level of success as Emotet enjoyed before the crackdown, Check Point’s Omer Dembinsky told Threatpost.
“Although we still do not see another single threat reaching the scale of Emotet’s activity, the overall variety and volume of possible threats continues to pose an extremely high risk on networks and devices, and we have no doubt that the void left by Emotet’s takedown will be filled,” he said.

Read more: TrickBot Takes Over, After Cops Kneecap Emotet | Threatpost