US Takes Out Gang That Used Zeus Malware To Steal Millions 38
coondoggie (973519) writes "The US Department of Justice charged nine members of a group that used Zeus malware to infect thousands of business computers and illegally siphon-off millions of dollars into over-seas bank accounts. The DoJ said an indictment was unsealed in connection with the arraignment this week at the federal courthouse in Lincoln, Neb., of two Ukrainian nationals, Yuriy Konovalenko, 31, and Yevhen Kulibaba, 36. Konovalenko and Kulibaba were recently extradited from the United Kingdom."
Scrabble points (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Are you some kind of moral degenerate that allows proper nouns in Scrabble or just a racist.
Re: (Score:3)
There have been some fishy extraditions over the years, but the world is better off with these guys out of circulation.
Now we need to find the CrypoLocker perpetrators, and "render" them to a Brazilian favela.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, and when they get here, get tried and sentenced in Nebraska, they will end up in a Kansas or Missouri prison where a fellow prisoner from Arkansas will be heard to say, Boy, Yuriy, you sure do got a purdy mouth on you, I bet you can squeal like a fat ol piggy.
Re: (Score:1)
smatter? Was you the punk in the bunk? Your daddy got you wearin a diaper? Couldnt get in to punk city?
Im here to tell you how fucking funny it really IS! Sometimes, justice is just a pain in the ass and I bet you got a story of romance and intrigue.
So... (Score:1)
Looking at the story on Obama about the 'next Hearthbleed', this is where we can only conclude that the US government is taking out the competition...
Re: (Score:3)
This is what the US government should be doing: protecting US banking interests and keeping depositors safe from malware.
The thing about leaving Heartbleed viable as a backdoor for national security exploits is that it exposes one's own citizens to attacks such as this.
Attcking bank interests (Score:2, Insightful)
As we have seen in 2008, disrupting the US banking system really wreaks havoc on out economy - and that was done by legal entities.
Now, if some foreign crooks or whatever causes us to lose trust in our banking system further, I can only guess what the long term consequences will be.
Never the less, until the our banking system gets its act together and takes security seriously instead of counting Washington (their Congressman bitches) to clean up their messes, we can expect more of this in the future.
Re: (Score:2)
This is what the US government should be doing: protecting US banking interests and keeping depositors safe from malware.
Thu US governments idea of protecting banking interests is trillion dollar bailout for crooks that knowingly defraud and launder.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... [wikipedia.org]
Re:So... I didn't know heartbleed exploit existed. (Score:1)
Neither did you. But i haven't updated my systems since the patriot act.
Because i'm smarter than the average guy.
Re: (Score:1)
We can do it because nobody else can stop us. The world bends over for us and we fuck you whenever we feel like.
Be as disgusted as you like, but it won't change.
Re: (Score:2)
Be as disgusted as you like, but it won't change.
That's what the Romans believed.
Can they pay back the $$ they stole? (Score:2)
If not, throw them into a wood chipper.
Seriously, if the potential reward for crime is in the $million$, the odds of getting caught are probably low, and the punishment is a handful of years in prison - why would anyone NOT commit such a crime?
Most of the people I know work their lives as wage-slaves for 8+ hours a day, for decades, for a fraction of that (and what they get, a giant chunk goes to taxes).
Re: (Score:2)
Because prison sucks and they'll usually seize any assets that they can prove were from the crime. So that's a pretty good reason not to do it.
Oh, and there's the whole "being a moral person" thing. Some people care about that too.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, your answer to crime is "people should be moral people"?
Wow, no wonder it's working so well.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
. . . and they'll usually seize any assets that they can prove were from the crime.
That happens whether the person is charged with a crime or not and the burden of proof is on the person to prove that the seized assets were *not* involved in a crime.
We need coding standards & code reviews (Score:1)
We have this idea that technology should progress fast and endlessly without consideration for security, privacy, etc. The lack of concern for coding standards and code review is whats gotten us into this mess. Heartbleed shouldn't have happened and neither should most bugs. Sadly nobody wants to contribute financially or otherwise to such mundane tasks. Unfortunately the US government's been co-opted by people who don't have our best interest at stake. They've convinced us to fund organizations that do exa
Why Did This Take So Long? (Score:1)
If there is one thing that we have learned recently, (a sincere thank-you to Edward Snowden) it is that the degree of monitoring of internet activity available to the "5 Eyes" nations is unprecedented. It is inconceivable that they could not have tracked all Zeus activity to their command-and-control servers, and from there to the operators, in the matter of a few days, or perhaps even hours.
Given their ability to monitor all internet traffic, it follows that they also have the ability to monitor machines a