(CTN News) – The European Union’s police force, Europol, said Wednesday that a coordinated international operation has effectively attacked a pro-Russian cybercrime network’s infrastructure.

A number of denial-of-service attacks against Ukraine and its allies were linked to this network.

Europol’s Eastwood operation targeted NoName057(16).

This group was identified by Dutch officials as the culprit behind a series of denial-of-service assaults on many towns and organizations connected to a recent NATO gathering held in the Netherlands.

According to Europol, those connected to the cybercrime network were also responsible for attacks in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The global operation “led to the disruption of an attack-infrastructure consisting of over one hundred computer systems worldwide,” according to the police agency, which caused a significant amount of the network’s central server infrastructure to go offline.

According to the report, law enforcement and courts in the United States, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands conducted concurrent operations against cybercriminals and infrastructure associated with the pro-Russian cybercrime network.

Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of carrying out many attacks, sabotage attempts, and other incidents across Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Here are some instances of cyberattacks. The Associated Press is tracking them in a detailed map that shows the scope of efforts to erode support for Ukraine and sow division among European cultures.

During the latest operation, German court officials issued six arrest orders for suspected Russian nationals. Two of these people are suspected by Europol to be the gang’s main leaders. Five of them were found on Europol’s Europe’s Most Wanted webpage.

As reported by Europol, one of the suspects has been taken into custody in Spain, and another has been detained in France for a brief period of time. In France, one person has been put into custody, and communications equipment has been taken, according to the office of the prosecutor in Paris. There has been no accusation made against anyone as of yet.

The FBI was involved in the US operation.

The Swiss attorney general’s office said in a statement Wednesday that Europol and the Swiss federal police worked together to identify three key members of the group.

The European Union does not include Switzerland as a member. The organization is thought to be in charge of targeting more than 200 Swiss websites. In June 2023, Swiss prosecutors opened a criminal inquiry regarding the incidents. Numerous such denial-of-service assaults linked to the environmental activist group have now been discovered by them.

The attacks included a video message sent to the Swiss parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as the famous Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Basel earlier this year.

According to Europol, members of the cybercrime gang have redirected their efforts from attacking Ukrainian institutions to targeting countries that support Ukraine in its continuous resistance against the Russian aggression campaign. Many of these countries are members of NATO.

Law enforcement authorities in the countries involved in the operation contacted hundreds of people suspected of being group supporters to alert them to the crackdown and their suspected involvement in the group’s operations.

“The majority of the individuals who are active on behalf of NoName057(16) are Russian-speaking sympathizers who utilize automated tools to execute distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.” According to Europol, these people lack official leadership and specific technological abilities, but they are driven by ideology and rewards.

Additionally, it was said that the organization used online gaming phenomena, such as leader boards and certificates, to motivate its recruits and paid them in cryptocurrency.

Europol claims that “this gamified manipulation, which was frequently directed at younger offenders, was emotionally reinforced by a narrative of defending Russia or avenging political events.”

SOURCE: AP