Operation Medusa

Operation Medusa was a concerted campaign led by the United States Department of Justice and the FBI to disrupt the activities of Turla's Snake malware. Snake, a signature malware used by the Russia-sponsored Turla advanced persistent threat (APT), had been compromising computers on a large scale. The U.S. government named this operation aimed at neutralizing the malware as "Operation Medusa." As part of the operation, officials identified where the hacking tool had been deployed across the internet and created a unique software payload to disrupt the hackers' infrastructure. The cornerstone of Operation Medusa was the use of an FBI-developed tool named PERSEUS. This tool issued commands that caused the Snake malware to overwrite its own vital components, effectively disabling it on compromised systems. For instance, in May, the FBI successfully used PERSEUS to disable the Snake malware network. Despite the success of Operation Medusa, victims were advised to take additional steps to protect themselves from further harm, highlighting the ongoing risk posed by cyber threats. Adam Meyers, head of intelligence for CrowdStrike, emphasized the importance of public/private collaboration and threat intelligence information sharing in global efforts to combat sophisticated cyber adversarial groups. He cited Operation Medusa as a prime example of such collaborative endeavors. Despite the operation's success, Turla launched a retaliatory ransomware attack against the nonprofit organization, Water for People, demanding $300,000 in exchange for stolen data, underscoring the persistent and evolving nature of cyber threats.