WASHINGTON — An international law enforcement team has arrested a Chinese national and disabled a major botnet that authorities said he ran for nearly a decade, racking up at least $99 million in profits by reselling access to criminals who used it to steal money. identity, child exploitation and financial fraud, including pandemic relief scams.
The US Department of Justice quoted FBI Director Christopher Wray as saying on Wednesday that the “911 S5” botnet – a network of malware-infected computers in nearly 200 countries – was “probably the largest in the world.”
Justice said in a press release that Yunhe Wang, 35, was arrested on May 24. Wang was arrested in Singapore, and search warrants were executed there and in Thailand, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Cyber Operations Brett Leatherman said in a statement. a post on LinkedIn. Authorities also seized $29 million in cryptocurrencies, Leatherman said.
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Cybercriminals used Wang’s network of zombie home computers to steal “billions of dollars from financial institutions, credit card issuers and account holders, and federal loan programs since 2014,” according to an indictment filed in the Eastern District of Texas.
The administrator, Wang, sold access to the 19 million Windows computers he hijacked – more than 613,000 in the United States – to criminals who “used this access to commit a staggering series of crimes that victimized children, threatened people’s safety and defrauded financial institutions and federal loan programs,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in announcing the removal.
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He said criminals who bought access to Wang’s zombie network were responsible for more than $5.9 billion in estimated losses due to fraud against humanitarian aid programs. Authorities estimated that 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims originated from compromised IP addresses.
Wang allegedly managed the botnet through 150 dedicated servers, half of which were rented from US-based online service providers.
The indictment says Wang used his ill-gotten gains to buy 21 properties in the United States, China, Singapore, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Saint Kitts and Nevis, where he claimed to have obtained citizenship through investment.
In its press release, the Department of Justice thanked police and other authorities in Singapore and Thailand for their assistance.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
