Major Malware group bust in Spain: ‘Botnet’ Virus Infected 13m PC’s

Major Malware group bust in Spain: ‘Botnet’ Virus Infected 13m PC’s – The Spanish authorities have smashed one of the world’s biggest networks of virus-infected computers and a data vacuum that stole information from more than 2.7 million infected PCs.

The “botnet” virus infected computers included PCs inside more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 major banks, according to investigators.

The Spanish police officers also arrested many members of the group. They arrested the 3 main leaders of the Mariposa botnet. Authorities identified them by their Internet handles and their ages: “netkairo,” 31; “jonyloleante,” 30; and “ostiator,” 25. A police spokesman also said that, “I don’t think there’s anything about this guy that makes him smarter than any of the other botnet guys, but the (Mariposa) software, it’s very professional, and it’s very effective. It came alive and started spreading and it got bigger than him.”

“They’re not like these people from the Russian mafia or Eastern European mafia who like to have sports cars and good watches and good suits — the most frightening thing is they are normal people who are earning a lot of money with cybercrime,” Cesar Lorenza, a captain with Spain’s Guardia Civil said.