U.S. authorities announced Wednesday they had neutralized a network of zombie computers, or botnet, infected with the virus Coreflood ("Flood of the heart") that would have allowed its creators to capture passwords and banking information. Thirteen people, including several in Russia, continued in this investigation.
According to court documents released Wednesday, 2.34 million computers in Tech News Buzz were infected with the virus Coreflood in February 2010, including 1.85 million in the United States. Five servers and 29 Internet domain names have been seized in this operation, described by the Department of Justice as "the most comprehensive ever conducted by U.S.
authorities to neutralize an international botnet". Coreflood exploits a vulnerability of computers running the Microsoft Windows system, and has, in at least one case, to make a fraudulent wire transfer to an account abroad. The infected computers can indeed be controlled remotely. "Infected computers in the botnet Coreflood automatically memorized keystrokes (by users) and internet communications without their knowledge, including their IDs and passwords banking," says the complaint.
The vulnerability exploited by the virus had been corrected by Microsoft, but many computers already infected or have not been upgraded, remained contaminated. The full extent of financial loss has not been quantified, but a real estate company in Michigan has lost 115,771 dollars in fraudulent transfers, and an industrial sector of the defense settled in Tennessee 241 866 dollars.
Another botnet, called Mariposa (butterfly in Spanish) was dismantled last year by U.S. authorities, Spanish and Slovenian. It would have concerned 8-12000000 computers in Tech News Buzz. 
According to court documents released Wednesday, 2.34 million computers in Tech News Buzz were infected with the virus Coreflood in February 2010, including 1.85 million in the United States. Five servers and 29 Internet domain names have been seized in this operation, described by the Department of Justice as "the most comprehensive ever conducted by U.S.
authorities to neutralize an international botnet". Coreflood exploits a vulnerability of computers running the Microsoft Windows system, and has, in at least one case, to make a fraudulent wire transfer to an account abroad. The infected computers can indeed be controlled remotely. "Infected computers in the botnet Coreflood automatically memorized keystrokes (by users) and internet communications without their knowledge, including their IDs and passwords banking," says the complaint.
The vulnerability exploited by the virus had been corrected by Microsoft, but many computers already infected or have not been upgraded, remained contaminated. The full extent of financial loss has not been quantified, but a real estate company in Michigan has lost 115,771 dollars in fraudulent transfers, and an industrial sector of the defense settled in Tennessee 241 866 dollars.
Another botnet, called Mariposa (butterfly in Spanish) was dismantled last year by U.S. authorities, Spanish and Slovenian. It would have concerned 8-12000000 computers in Tech News Buzz.
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