The FBI announced that it had organized a multinational operation to crack down on a malware and botnet network known as Qakbot, making it one of the agency's largest cyber crackdowns to date.

The collective digital Qakbot network will be targeted by "Operation Duck Hunt," a multiagency team-up. The network was used to engage in ransomware, financial fraud, and other cyberenabled criminal activities. The network involved more than 700,000 computers, including 200,000 within the United States.

"The FBI neutralized this far-reaching criminal supply chain, cutting it off at the knees," FBI Director Christopher Wray said. "The victims ranged from financial institutions on the East Coast to a critical infrastructure government contractor in the Midwest to a medical device manufacturer on the West Coast."

Qakbot was created in 2008 and slowly worked to install additional malware, including ransomware, to their computers through malicious links. The malware was then used to turn the computer into part of a compromised computer network and then remotely controlled by the users. Most victims were unaware that their computer was not being used this way.

Qakbot was linked to at least 40 different ransomware attacks, according to the FBI.

"This botnet provided cybercriminals like these with a command-and-control infrastructure consisting of hundreds of thousands of computers used to carry out attacks against individuals and businesses all around the globe," Wray said.

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The FBI decided to counter the network by gaining lawful access to the infrastructure and redirecting traffic to bureau-controlled servers. Any computer the activity of which was redirected to the server received an uninstaller file, which then removed the Qakbot malware.

The FBI cooperated with several international agencies on the project, including agencies in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Romania, Latvia, and the United Kingdom.