Microsoft Corp and the FBI, aided by authorities in more than 80 countries, have launched a major assault on one of the world's biggest cyber crime rings, believed to have stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months. Microsoft said its Digital Crimes Unit on Wednesday successfully took down at least 1,000 of an estimated 1,400 malicious computer networks known as the Citadel Botnets.
Citadel infected as many as 5 million PCs around the world and, according to Microsoft, was used to steal from dozens of financial institutions, including: American Express, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, eBay's PayPal, HSBC, J.P. Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Canada and Wells Fargo. While the criminals remain at large and the authorities do not know the identities of any ringleaders, the internationally co-ordinated take-down dealt a significant blow to their cyber capabilities. "The bad guys will feel the punch in the gut," said Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.
Botnets are armies of infected personal computers, or bots, which run software forcing them to regularly check in with and obey "command and control" servers operated by hackers. Botnets are typically used to commit financial crimes, send spam, distribute computer viruses and attack computer networks. Citadel is one of the biggest botnets in operation today. Microsoft said its 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.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation told Reuters it is working closely with Europol and other overseas authorities to try to capture the unknown criminals. The FBI has obtained search warrants as part of what it characterised as a "fairly advanced" criminal probe. "We are upping the game in our level of commitment in going after botnet creators and distributors," FBI Assistant Executive Director Richard McFeely said in an interview.
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 complaint, unsealed on Wednesday, identifies the ringleader as John Doe No 1, who goes by the alias Aquabox and is accused of creating and maintaining the botnet.
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. According to Microsoft, Citadel was used to steal more than $500 million from banks in the United States and abroad, but the company did not specify losses at individual accounts or firms.
Microsoft said it and the FBI are working with law enforcement and other organisations in countries including: Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Spain and the United Kingdom. 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 rest were located in dozens of countries overseas.
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