Microsoft & FBI Team Up To Bust The World's Biggest Cyber Crime Ring
When it comes to taking down the bad, the best of them come together to wipe them all. Microsoft Corp. and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) along with authorities from more than 80 countries have launched a war against one of the world's biggest cyber crime rings. These global criminals might have stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months. Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit has been able to take down thousands of malicious computer networks known as the Citadel Botnets. Citadel stole from world's largest financial institutions, that include - Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, eBay's PayPal, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Canada, American Express etc. and infected about 5 millions PCs.
Citadel, currently a big botnet in operation has creator bundled the software with pirated versions of the Windows operating system, and used it to control PCs in the United States, Western Europe, Hong Kong, India and Australia. Such criminals are out at large and their ringleaders yet remain unknown. "The bad guys will feel the punch in the gut," said Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit. Now, the FBI has obtained search warrants as part of what it characterized as a "fairly advanced" criminal probe.
Microsoft has filed a civil lawsuit in the US District Court in Charlotte, North Carolina against the unknown hackers and obtained a court order to shut down the botnets. The Citadel software is programmed so it will not attack PCs or financial institutions in Ukraine or Russia, likely because the creators operate in those countries and want to avoid provoking law enforcement officials there, Microsoft said.
Microsoft's team of digital detectives, who are based at corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, have been involved in seven efforts to attack botnets since 2010. Wednesday's marked its first collaboration with the FBI. Of the more than 1,000 botnets that were shut down on Wednesday, Microsoft said 455 were hosted in 40 data centers in the United States. The Citadel software disables anti-virus programs on infected PCs so they cannot detect malicious software. Some Citadel Botnet operators have used infected machines to disrupt bank websites in so-called distributed denial of service attacks, hoping to distract those firms from thefts that are occurring or have occurred, according to the complaint.
It just goes to say that some serious damage has happened and now this internationally coordinated take-down could be a huge blow for Citadel.
Via: #-Link-Snipped-#
Citadel, currently a big botnet in operation has creator bundled the software with pirated versions of the Windows operating system, and used it to control PCs in the United States, Western Europe, Hong Kong, India and Australia. Such criminals are out at large and their ringleaders yet remain unknown. "The bad guys will feel the punch in the gut," said Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit. Now, the FBI has obtained search warrants as part of what it characterized as a "fairly advanced" criminal probe.
Microsoft has filed a civil lawsuit in the US District Court in Charlotte, North Carolina against the unknown hackers and obtained a court order to shut down the botnets. The Citadel software is programmed so it will not attack PCs or financial institutions in Ukraine or Russia, likely because the creators operate in those countries and want to avoid provoking law enforcement officials there, Microsoft said.
Microsoft's team of digital detectives, who are based at corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, have been involved in seven efforts to attack botnets since 2010. Wednesday's marked its first collaboration with the FBI. Of the more than 1,000 botnets that were shut down on Wednesday, Microsoft said 455 were hosted in 40 data centers in the United States. The Citadel software disables anti-virus programs on infected PCs so they cannot detect malicious software. Some Citadel Botnet operators have used infected machines to disrupt bank websites in so-called distributed denial of service attacks, hoping to distract those firms from thefts that are occurring or have occurred, according to the complaint.
It just goes to say that some serious damage has happened and now this internationally coordinated take-down could be a huge blow for Citadel.
Via: #-Link-Snipped-#
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