Cybercrime: Large Scale Botnet Dismantled in the United States
- American authorities announced they dismantled a gigantic botnet which had enrolled almost two million PCs around the world during the past decade and likely to have allowed fraudsters to steal about 100 million dollars.
- According to the Department of Justice, its masters could have retrieved a large number of banking credentials as well as other sensitive data later used to steal funds from the victims through fraudulent banking websites for instance.
- This “victory” occurs after March 2011 shutting down of the servers used by Rustock, one of the biggest producers of spams.
- Sensitive data, like banking credentials retrieved through the use of this botnet, can easily be sold on the Internet; their price varies according to the number of data bought (more or less bundles) and the kind of account to which they enable access.
- Suppression of these networks isn’t easy and proper measures must be taken: ISPs are in the front line.
- In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCD) built up a workshop in charge of writing best practices to address ISPs’ needs and aiming to help them detect cybercrime activities and protect their customers. In Europe, as early as in 2009, the IETF also proposed best practices for the ISPs.