As part of “Operation Magnus”, the Dutch police, in collaboration with international partners such as the FBI, seized the infrastructure of the notorious Redline and Meta malware families. The investigators announced this on a specially set up website. The malware campaigns are responsible for millions of stolen credentials.
A report BleepingComputer According to this, on October 28, 2024, the Dutch police, together with partners such as the US Department of Justice and Europol, were able to significantly disrupt the operations of the two infostealer malware families. It is said that legal action is now underway against those responsible. Both Redline and Meta are said to have had the same infrastructure, which suggests they have common authors.
Redline and Meta are considered powerful but affordable malware that cybercriminals have used to massively steal their victims’ credentials, crypto wallets and other sensitive information in recent years. According to experts, over 170 million passwords were stolen within six months using Redline alone. The data obtained in this way was then misused for further criminal activities such as data leaks or ransomware attacks.
With the Seizure of infrastructure and access to the source code of both malware families, the investigators now have important evidence in their hands. According to their own statements, they can not only identify the operators, but also track down and prosecute users of the malware. Further details on the investigation results will be published shortly.
