Security Operations · Intermediate

Emotet

A modular malware family that evolved from a banking trojan into a major spam-distributed loader for other malware.

Definition

Emotet spread through malicious Office documents in email and hijacked email threads, then delivered payloads such as TrickBot and QakBot that led to ransomware. Its infrastructure was disrupted by a coordinated law enforcement operation in January 2021, but it later resurfaced. It is a standard example of a loader-as-a-service.

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