Three men in the Netherlands were arrested on charges of running a zombie bot network of 100,000 PCs and attempting to blackmail an organization in North America.
Identified only by their ages, 19, 22, and 27, the zombie kings of the Netherlands have been accused of using the Codbot worm, also known as Toxbot, to take over 100,000 personal computers, security firm Sophos has reported.
Authorities have accused the trio of computer hacking, and of installing adware and spyware via the worm to take over PCs. The group tweaked the worm through 2005 as they tried to stay ahead of antivirus software.
At least one version of the Codbot worm included a keylogger, and reported its key captures back to the accused men; that information would include personal details like bank information and credit card numbers. During their time at large, Dutch authorities claim the group also tried to extort money from an undisclosed North American firm.
Sophos notes such extortion attempts are common when a criminal commands enough zombie machines to launch a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on a business. Those attacks can cripple a company’s online presence. Also, many spammers use bot networks to push out millions of messages to inboxes worldwide.
“The Dutch authorities should be applauded for investigating this case, but with many other internet criminals in operation these arrests are unlikely to make a dramatic impact on the safety of the internet,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, in the report.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
