Suspected gang behind the $850 million Butterfly botnet arrested

The FBI has announced that 10 individuals have been arrested, suspected of involvement in infecting 11 million computers with spyware that led to an alleged $850 million in losses.

The FBI is said to have worked in co-ordination with law enforcement agencies around the world on the investigation.

The suspected gang were arrested in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as international computer crime cops linked the individuals with the Yahos malware.

According to the FBI, the Yahos malware threat compromised 11 million PCs worldwide, forming the Butterfly botnet, and stole computer users’ credit card details, as well as bank account information, and other personal data that could lead to identity…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.