EmoTet as a total, I often consider it like one big infection factory.

Welcome to the Europol podcast, the official podcast of the EU's law enforcement agency.

In this series, we shine a light on some of the biggest operations Europol has supported

and how we continue to fight crime.

The King of Malware.

On a cold day in January 2021, 30 of Europe's leading cybercrime specialists gathered at the Europol headquarters in The Hague.

Today, however, was no ordinary operational meeting.

This was a culmination of two years of careful planning and research.

Their task was the takedown of one of the most destructive botnets of the last decade, Emotat.

This one was very smooth.

I was as an example of coordination.

I would say in two hours, three hours, we had a plan set up and we followed each step that it was accomplished.

And it went perfectly.

Bogdan is one of the cyber specialists who was at Europol that day.

Hi, my name is Bogdan. I'm a specialist working at APC cyber and one of the

Europol staff that have been assigned to work on this investigation.

These specialists had one chance to implement a new and innovative approach

they had developed to take down a botnet this dangerous.

This would allow them to dismantle the criminal infrastructure used by the criminals

before they did any more damage.

It turned out that Operation Ladybird, as it was called, was a great success.

But it took a lot of preparation in the years before the takedown to get to that historic day.

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