The FBI, Google and 20 technology organizations have teamed up to launch a giant network (3ve) in cyberspace that was used by criminals to create false views and clicks.
For those who do not know what fake clikcs means, it's a method used to trick advertising networks. The above network has been operating for the last four years and has earned millions of dollars in revenue for its creators.
In addition to a concerted intervention to remove network botnets, the US Department of Justice has also announced an indictment against eight suspects believed to be behind the project. Three of them have already been arrested and expected to be released in the United States.
According to a DOJ indictment and a white paper released by Google and Cyber-Security White Ops, the eight suspects are believed to be the main operators of the particular fraud scheme which is believed to have been operating since at least 2014.
Investigators and the FBI said the administrators used different preletterto generate ad impressions and clicks. They used tricks, such as renting other botnets, but also creating their own botnets hosted in different data centers, to hide their real IP addresses. They even created legitimate pages to display ads and control bots.
According to the FBI, in one of these tricks they used more than 1.900 servers to host MethBot / Miuref / Boaxxe bots.
The bots were configured to mimic the traffic coming from both desktops and mobile devices.
The researchers report that a gang managed to spread the bot to more than 700.000 computers, infecting them with malicious λογισμικό Kovter. Το bot άνοιγε κρυφά παράθυρα του προγράμματος περιήγησης για να φορτώνει websites which of course brought the criminals more profits.
In one publishing on the blog of the company, Google today revealed that it was aware of the features and functions of the bot last year. Google has said that it has assembled a team of big technology names: Microsoft, ESET, Symantec, Proofpoint, Trend Micro, F-Secure, Malwarebytes, CenturyLink, MediaMath, White Ops, Amazon, Adobe, Trade Desk, Oath, The Shadowserver Foundation, and National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance.
The names of the 8 arrested: Aleksandr Zhukov (38, Russia), Boris Timokhin (39 years old from Russia), Mikhail Andreev (34 years old from Russia), Denis Avdeev (40 years old from Russia), Dmitry Novikov (??years old from Russia), Sergey Ovsyannikov (30 years old from Kazakhstan), Aleksandr Isaev (31 years old from Russia), and Yevgeniy Timchenko (30 years old from Kazakhstan).
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