In a collaborative effort, security researchers with Avast and the French police took down a massive cryptomining botnet earlier this year. The botnet consisted of 850,000 machines that were infected with Retadup, a malware strain designed to mine Monero (XMR) and in some cases to log keystrokes and take screenshots. Most of the infected devices were located in Latin America.
When scrutinizing Retadup, Avast researchers discovered a flaw that could enable them to take over the botnet and remove the malware from all infected devices. With assistance from the French police, Avast succeeded in exploiting the flaw and taking down the botnet.
Read more: Avast Maker Team WIth Police To Free 850,000 Computers From Cryptomining Malware
