U.S. sues nine people for spreading Zeus Trojan

The U.S. Justice Department has nine alleged members of a criminal organization accused of distributing and using the Zeus Trojan.

According to the prosecutor, they are responsible for infecting thousands of corporate computers with malware. Most of the suspects are from Ukraine.

Two of the suspects, Yuriy Konovalenko (31) and Yevhen Kulibaba (36) were arrested. The Ukrainians were arrested in the UK and have recently been extradited to the United States. Three other Ukrainians and Russian are also indicted but remain at large. The rest of the indicted individuals are not identified and included in the indictment. As "John Doe".

Indictment

All defendants are accused of conspiring to computer fraud and identity theft, conspiracy to commit extortion, several cases of bank fraud and identity theft qualified.

The suspects are accused of using Zeus or ZBot order bank account numbers, passwords, personal identification numbers, RSA SecureID token codes and similar information needed to log in to steal. On online bank accounts In the indictment was read to the accused banks were wise they were employees of the victims and were authorized to make transfers from the bank accounts of the victims.

Among the victims of the scam Zeus were the Bank of America, First National Bank of Omaha, Nebraska and the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago and Key Bank.

Method

The suspects reportedly used U.S. citizens as straw men. The straw men took the money and then returns to a foreign bank account of the criminals.

Kulibaba ran allegedly laundering network in the UK, while Konovalenko would have settled and was responsible for forwarding the information to Kulibaba. Straw men and the bank details The other members of the organization were responsible for the development of the malware and the financial and technical management.

"The Zeus Trojan is one of the most damaging financial malware ever used," said Assistant Attorney General David O'Neil. "As the charges demonstrate, we are determined to make the Internet safer and protect. Personal data and bank accounts of American consumers".

Research

The British police, the Dutch High Tech Crime Team and the Ukrainian Secret Service have the U.S. Department of Justice assisted with the investigation.

In 2007 Zeus botnet infected millions of computers worldwide. In 2010, a study by security firm RSA that almost all the "Fortune 500" companies have some form of a Zeus infection showed. From 2011 Zeus is sold as a commercial product.