Emotet Locked onto US Military and Government

New research into the latest victims of Emotet has found increased instances of the malware affecting the United States of America's government and military.

The pernicious malware, which is spread via email, has been infecting organizations all over the world since 2014. By shining a spotlight on Emotet's recent activities, researchers at Cisco Talos discovered that the US government is among the latest victims to be compromised. 

Researchers made the discovery by closely examining the patterns of outbound email associated with the malware. 

A Talos spokesperson said: "If a person has substantial email ties to a particular organization, when they become infected with Emotet the effects would manifest in the form of increased outbound Emotet email directed at that organization. 

"One of the most vivid illustrations of this effect can be seen in Emotet's relationship to the .mil (U.S. military) and .gov (U.S./state government) top-level domains (TLDs). 

"When Emotet emerged from its summer vacation back in mid-September 2019, relatively few outbound emails were seen directed at the .mil and .gov TLDs. But sometime in the past few months, Emotet was able to successfully compromise one or more persons working for or with the U.S. government."

The malware's successful compromise of at least one US government employee led to what researchers described as a "rapid increase" in the number of infectious Emotet messages directed at the .mil and .gov TLDs in December 2019.

Following a brief spot of respite over the winter holidays, Emotet is once ..

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