{ "id": "c74ff655-74a9-44bf-af00-3d067e49c9c6", "created_at": "2026-04-06T00:15:59.335601Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T03:22:50.166018Z", "deleted_at": null, "sha1_hash": "61221e4a9723e978eaaf46803586656e9c7a2545", "title": "Operation Endgame: Do Takedowns and Arrests Matter?", "llm_title": "", "authors": "", "file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "file_modification_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "file_size": 1812704, "plain_text": "Operation Endgame: Do Takedowns and Arrests Matter?\r\nBy James Shank\r\nPublished: 2025-06-17 · Archived: 2026-04-05 22:36:06 UTC\r\n4 Min Read\r\nSource: wsf AL via Alamy Stock Photo\r\nCOMMENTARY\r\nOn April 9, 2025, Operation Endgame announced the detention of five people. These arrests target the customers\r\nof the criminals arrested in 2024, during the first Operation Endgame. The initial effort provided the evidence for\r\nthis new round of arrests. \r\nOperation Endgame is an international effort to tackle cybercrime, involving cooperation between several\r\ncountries' federal law enforcement agencies, with functional support from Europol. This includes several EU\r\nmember states, as well as the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom. First becoming public in 2024, Operation\r\nEndgame now attempts to raise the costs on threat actors by seizing criminal resources, unmasking actor\r\nidentities, and making arrests. \r\nOperation Endgame is far from the first effort like this. It's also not the only effort like this going on right now.\r\nThis raises the question: Do efforts like Operation Endgame work? Do these efforts matter, and is their impact\r\nvisible? \r\nhttps://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/operation-endgame-takedowns-arrests-matter\r\nPage 1 of 3\n\nRelated:Automotive Cybersecurity Threats Grow in Era of Connected, Autonomous Vehicles\r\nAn answer is emerging for the larger-picture question. For defenders to be successful, we have to change the\r\neconomics of security, implement cost on the actor's side, and rebalance the equation. \r\nTakedowns and coordinated law enforcement activities have a long history of activity. Assessing past takedown\r\nactivities surrounding Emotet and Trickbot, as well as the Operation Endgame targets, can give us an\r\nunderstanding of the impact of these efforts. \r\nThe Most Significant Cybersecurity Threat in the World\r\nEmotet was first detected in 2014 and grew to become the most significant cybersecurity threat in the world by\r\n2021. Emotet was primarily used to send malicious spam and functioned as a botnet of controlled victim devices. \r\nIn January 2021, Emotet was the target of a large coordinated takedown involving an exceptionally large number\r\nof public and private sector participants. This effort offered the first signs of proof that large coordinated\r\ntakedowns of this scale could make a lasting impact. The actors behind Emotet tried to resurrect the botnet several\r\ntimes following the takedown. The next couple of years saw some Emotet activity, but always at significantly\r\nreduced rates and with much less impact. Eventually, the actors abandoned Emotet altogether.\r\nTrickbot was first reported in October 2016. The Trickbot and Emotet crews had a long-running underground\r\nbusiness relationship. Emotet offered loader services to Trickbot before Trickbot incorporated its own loader\r\nfunctionality in 2018. Later, when Emotet tried to rebuild, they used Trickbot as a loader service. Trickbot itself\r\nbecame the target of choice for a collaborative takedown effort in late 2020. This effort was led by US Cyber\r\nCommand and Microsoft. US Cyber Command exploited features of Trickbot to neuter the malware, while\r\nMicrosoft went to court. Microsoft sued on the grounds that Trickbot was illegally distributing Microsoft's code by\r\nincluding components of Microsoft's software development kit (SDK). This created a future legal basis for some\r\npowerful companies to pursue disruption efforts against malware by leveraging copyright enforcement with\r\nhosting providers and ISPs to take down criminal services. \r\nRelated:Critical Flaw in Langflow AI Platform Under Attack\r\nOperation Endgame became public in 2024, after the voids of Emotet and Trickbot created space for other\r\nmalicious tools to surge. The first takedown effort, now known as Season 1, took place in April 2024, targeting\r\nseveral gangs and malware infrastructures. \r\nSmokeloader was significantly affected by the takedown. Pikabot and IcedID were affected but, by some\r\naccounts, were still functioning shortly after the Season 1 takedown. Bumblebee was affected, only coming back\r\nlater in 2024. The effect on each of these targets ended up either being the direct end of that strain of malware or\r\nsignificantly degrading the functionality of the malware. \r\nRelated:Patch Now: Oracle's Fusion Middleware Has Critical RCE Flaw\r\nCybercrime Will Always Exist\r\nhttps://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/operation-endgame-takedowns-arrests-matter\r\nPage 2 of 3\n\nNow we are in Season 2 of Operation Endgame and see another round of detentions of criminals, this time the\r\ncustomers of Smokeloader. The message is clear: Law enforcement is still pursuing the cybercriminals and their\r\nassociates more than a year after the initial action. \r\nAre these takedown efforts effective? The clear answer is yes. They are changing the game for cybercriminals,\r\nslowing down the attacks, and giving the defenders some breathing room. Cybercrime will never fully be defeated\r\n— no one has any false hopes that takedowns will ever lead to a world without cybercrime. Yet these efforts have\r\nresulted in a world with a little less cybercrime, if only for a time. \r\nCybercrime response needs more aggressive actions from those seeking to protect victims and pursue criminals.\r\nWhat, then, should we pursue? Everything. Everywhere. All at once. And always. This is not a battle; this is a war\r\nthat will continue for as long as humankind has electronic devices. And for as long as that remains true, defenders\r\nwill need coordinated takedowns to shift the costs onto the adversaries and remind them that they are not safe\r\nfrom law enforcement efforts.\r\nAbout the Author\r\nDirector, Threat Operations, Expel\r\nJames Shank is director of threat operations at Expel, where he’s responsible for threat intelligence, vulnerability\r\nintelligence, and threat hunting. He also serves as chair of the board for Internet Fire Brigade Society, a non-profit\r\nfocused on bringing lasting solutions to Internet security problems outside of the remit of for-profit organizations.\r\nJames is passionate about keeping the needs of the Internet information security community at the center of his\r\nefforts by being involved and coordinating several community-oriented efforts to combat online threats.\r\nSource: https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/operation-endgame-takedowns-arrests-matter\r\nhttps://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/operation-endgame-takedowns-arrests-matter\r\nPage 3 of 3", "extraction_quality": 1, "language": "EN", "sources": [ "Malpedia" ], "references": [ "https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/operation-endgame-takedowns-arrests-matter" ], "report_names": [ "operation-endgame-takedowns-arrests-matter" ], "threat_actors": [ { "id": "b740943a-da51-4133-855b-df29822531ea", "created_at": "2022-10-25T15:50:23.604126Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:05.259593Z", "deleted_at": null, "main_name": "Equation", "aliases": [ "Equation" ], "source_name": "MITRE:Equation", "tools": null, "source_id": "MITRE", "reports": null } ], "ts_created_at": 1775434559, "ts_updated_at": 1775791370, "ts_creation_date": 0, "ts_modification_date": 0, "files": { "pdf": "https://archive.orkl.eu/61221e4a9723e978eaaf46803586656e9c7a2545.pdf", "text": "https://archive.orkl.eu/61221e4a9723e978eaaf46803586656e9c7a2545.txt", "img": "https://archive.orkl.eu/61221e4a9723e978eaaf46803586656e9c7a2545.jpg" } }