Blockchain Revolution Series: French Digital Crime-Fighting Authority Clamps Down Monero Botnet

French 'cyber-cops' clamps down Monero’s pirate computer network. French authorities announced this ‘clamp down’ of a monero-driven mining botnet that had infected about 850,000 computers in 100 different countries. 

French Cyber Police have been working for the ‘C3N digital crime-fighting centre’, dubbed “cybergendarmes,” were alerted to a botnet being operated out of Paris and using victims' devices to mine the privacy-centric cryptocurrency monero (XMR).

The C3N cybercrime unit at the French gendarmerie, which carried out the counterattack with help from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, called it a "world first" in a statement late on Tuesday.

While Mr. Jean-Dominique Nollet, the C3N chief, stated that "don't click on links if you're not sure who sent you the email."

He further said, “we managed to track down where the command server was, the control tower for the ‘botnet’ network of infected computers.”

The French authority was initially alerted by anti-virus company Avast about the illegitimate operation during this early stages of this year, the incident had infected a private server as the root for a virus called ‘Retadup’ via manipulative email and infected USB drives, which enabled hackers (unauthorized users) to access control of the computers remotely and involve themselves in mining monero illegally. The investigation revealed that the unfortunate incident accounted for the millions of euros.