FBI crackdown nabs 8 botnet herders

[Humpty]

The FBI today announced the arrest of eight U.S. men accused to hijacking PCs for use in a million-strong botnet that accounted for $20 million in economic loss.

 

In its ?Bot Roast II? crackdown, the FBI said it also served 13 search warrants in the U.S. and overseas against cyber-criminals involved with herding botnets.

 

FBI offices participating in Bot Roast II included Cincinnati, Detroit, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C. As happens most often with complex cyber investigations, there was valuable intelligence sharing amongst law enforcement agencies that led to the success of Bot Roast II. Exchange of information between the U.S. Secret Service, the New Zealand Police, and the FBI led to the initiation and enhancement of additional botnet investigations. In one example, authorities in New Zealand, working in collaboration with the FBI Philadelphia Office, conducted a search this week at the residence of an individual who goes by the cyber ID of AKILL. AKILL is believed to be the ringleader of an elite international botnet coding group that is responsible for infecting more than one million computers.

ZDnet Article