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, JPMorgan 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 coordinated 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 runsoftware 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. (See graphic link.reuters.com/vem68t)
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 U.S. 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 characterized 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.
"This is a more concerted effort to engage our foreign partners to assist us in identifying, locating and - if we can - get U.S. criminal process on these botnet creators and distributors."
Microsoft has filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. 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.
Boscovich said investigators are trying to determine Aquabox`s identity and suspect he lives in eastern Europe and works with at least 81 "herders," who run the bots from anywhere in the world.
The Citadel software is programmed so it will not attack PCs or financial institutions in Ukraine orRussia, likely because the creators operate in those countries and want to avoid provoking law enforcement officials there, Microsoft said.
More about:
