Law enforcement has teamed up with the private sector to fight against the abuse of a legitimate security tool by criminals who were using it to infiltrate victims’ IT systems.
Older, unlicensed versions of the Cobalt Strike red teaming tool were targeted during a week of action coordinated from Europol’s headquarters between 24 and 28 June. Throughout the week, law enforcement flagged known IP addresses associated with criminal activity, along with a range of domain names used by criminal groups, for online service providers to disable unlicensed versions of the tool.
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Source: Europol
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