History's biggest cybercrime ring dismantled

Six Estonian nationals have been arrested and charged with running a sophisticated Internet fraud ring that infected millions of computers worldwide with a virus and enabled the thieves to manipulate the multi-billion-dollar Internet advertising industry.

Users of infected machines were unaware that their computers had been compromised — or that the malicious software rendered their machines vulnerable to a host of other viruses. Details of the two-year FBI investigation called “Operation Ghost Click" were announced on Wednesday in New York when a federal indictment was unsealed. The indictment, said Janice Fedarcyk, assistant director in charge of FBI’s New York office, “describes an intricate international conspiracy conceived and carried out by sophisticated criminals." She added, “The harm inflicted by the defendants was not merely a matter of reaping illegitimate income." The FBI worked with a number of partners to bust the cyber-criminal ring, including Internet security firm Trend Micro. According to Trend Micro, the cybercrime group that was controlling every step from infection with Trojans to monetizing the infected bots was an Estonian company known as Rove Digital. “Rove Digital is the mother company of many other companies like Esthost, Estdomains, Cernel, UkrTelegroup and many less well known shell companies. “Rove Digital is a seemingly legitimate IT company based in Tartu with an office where people work every morning. In reality the Tartu office is steering millions of compromised hosts all over the world and making millions in ill-gained profits from the bots every year," the company said in a blog. Beginning in 2007, the cyber ring used a class of malware called DNSChanger to infect approximately 4 million computers in more than 100 countries. There were about 500,000 infections in the US, including computers belonging to individuals, businesses, and government agencies such as NASA. The thieves were able to manipulate Internet advertising to generate at least $14 million in illicit fees. In some cases, the malware had the additional effect of preventing users’ anti-virus software and operating systems from updating, thereby exposing infected machines to even more malicious software. “They were organized and operating as a traditional business but profiting illegally as the result of the malware," said one of our cyber agents who worked the case. “There was a level of complexity here that we haven’t seen before." DNS — Domain Name System — is a critical Internet service that converts user-friendly domain names, such as www.fbi.gov, into numerical addresses that allow computers to talk to each other. Without DNS and the DNS servers operated by Internet service providers, computer users would not be able to browse websites or send e-mail. DNSChanger was used to redirect unsuspecting users to rogue servers controlled by the cyber thieves, allowing them to manipulate users’ Web activity. When users of infected computers clicked on the link for the official website of iTunes, for example, they were instead taken to a website for a business unaffiliated with Apple that purported to sell Apple software. Not only did the cyber thieves make money from these schemes, they deprived legitimate website operators and advertisers of substantial revenue. The six cyber criminals were taken into custody yesterday in Estonia by local authorities, and the US will seek to extradite them. In conjunction with the arrests, US authorities seized computers and rogue DNS servers at various locations. As part of a federal court order, the rogue DNS servers have been replaced with legitimate servers in the hopes that users who were infected will not have their Internet access disrupted. The FBI said it is important to note that the replacement servers will not remove the DNSChanger malware — or other viruses it may have facilitated — from infected computers. “Users who believe their computers may be infected should contact a computer professional. They can also find additional information in the links on this page, including how to register as a victim of the DNSChanger malware," it said. —Newsbytes.ph