Panda Security, Defense Intelligence, FBI and Spanish police smash gigantic botnet "Mariposa"

12,7 million infected computers worldwide / arrest of three alleged masterminds

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Panda Security, the cloud security company, has played a decisive role in an international success in the fight against cyber crime, namely the shutdown of the "Mariposa" botnet, one of the largest previously registered networks of infected computers.

According to information from Panda and the IT

Security company Defense Intelligence took the gigantic network of infected computers offline shortly before Christmas. It was developed by cybercriminals to steal sensitive information from unsuspecting computer users, such as bank account details, credit card details, etc. Three suspects allegedly controlling the botnet were arrested by the Spanish authorities.

 

 

The security companies Panda Security and Defense Intelligence worked closely with the FBI and the Spanish police unit Guardia Civil to break up the long-known botnet. Since the end of 2008, “Mariposa” has taken a total of 12,7 million computers under its control. The externally controlled devices were found in private households, government institutions and universities in over 190 different countries around the world. Numerous large corporations were also affected, including around 500 top US companies. With this, "Mariposa" built one of the largest botnets that have been registered to date. The cyber criminals received bank details and credit card information from the hijacked computers, as well as confidential access data such as usernames and passwords for social networks and e-mail services.

More information on Mariposa and how to break the botnet is available on the Panda blog at: http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/. (mh)

 

Source: Press Release