Emotet bounces back at the end of last year following earlier take down

One of the more significant good news security stories of last year was the culmination of an international effort in January to take down the Emotet botnet.

Sadly it seems that you can't keep a bad botnet down for long. The latest Q4 and Year in Review Threat Report from Nuspire shows Emotet bouncing back, with steadily increasing levels of activity throughout December.

"Although overall activity in 2021 compared to 2020 was on an overall decrease, major events such as Log4j and the return of Emotet dominated Q4," says JR Cunningham, chief security officer at Nuspire. "The return of Emotet discovered in the threat report is a reminder that organizations must never rest on their laurels even when there is a decrease in activity. Old attacks have a habit of coming back."

Other significant findings in the report include the newly discovered Log4j vulnerability moving into fifth place on the most observed exploit attempt list for Q4.

Another botnet, XorDDOS, was one of the most active in Q3 but prior to that it was generally quiet compared to others. It appears that at the beginning of Q4 this botnet has gone back into hibernation, with all activity ceasing by the end of October.

Overall 2021 has been a relatively quiet year. Compared against 2020, Nuspire has seen an overall decrease in activity in 2021. There has been 9.25 percent decrease in malware activity, 24.83 percent decrease in botnet activity, and 13.93 percent decrease in exploit activity

The full report is available from the Nuspire site.

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