Microsoft and U.S. Cyber Command separately disrupted a massive Russian cybercrime-linked TrickBot ransomware computer network just weeks ahead of the 2020 presidential election amid concerns that foreign actors are seeking to meddle in the U.S. democratic process.

“Today we took action to disrupt a botnet called Trickbot, one of the world’s most infamous botnets and prolific distributors of ransomware. As the United States government and independent experts have warned, ransomware is one of the largest threats to the upcoming elections. Adversaries can use ransomware to infect a computer system used to maintain voter rolls or report on election-night results, seizing those systems at a prescribed hour optimized to sow chaos and distrust,” Microsoft corporate Vice President Tom Burt said in a Monday blog post. “In addition to protecting election infrastructure from ransomware attacks, today’s action will protect a wide range of organizations including financial services institutions, government agencies, healthcare facilities, businesses, and universities from the various malware infections Trickbot enabled.”