Interpol conducted a special operation to combat crypto-jacking in Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asia, they carried out a special operation codenamed Operation Goldfish Alpha, aimed at combatingcrypto jacking. During operational investigations, law enforcement officers under the leadership of Interpol managed to reduce the number of devices infected with viruses.

The crypto jacking campaign waslaunched in June 2019. Over the five months of operation, police identified 20,000 hacked routers that were used for hidden cryptocurrency mining. According to law enforcement agencies, residents of 10 states were subjected to hacker attacks: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. To extract digital assets, the attackers installed the Coinhive miner on the victims' devices.

By the end of November 2019, experts removedmalware with 78% of infected routers. The devices were patched to exclude the possibility of re-infection. The special operation was carried out with the support of the North American company Cyber ​​Defense Institute and the Japanese technology company Trend Micro. Cybersecurity experts have developed methods to prevent attacks and have released new software for routers.

Interpol Cybercrime DirectorCraig Jones said police should work with antivirus developers to counter cyber threats. In his opinion, to increase the effectiveness of measures to combat hackers, it is necessary to combine the knowledge of the private sector with the capabilities of law enforcement agencies.