Cybercrime fighting group wipes out malicious servers


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

LONDON (AP) — A new group of international cyber-crime-fighters has claimed one of its first kills.

The group has pulled the plug on malicious servers that hijacked at least 12,000 machines, most of them in the United States.

The Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce was set up last year by the FBI, Britain's National Crime Agency, Europol and other international law enforcement agencies.

The target in this case was a botnet -- a term applied to networks or hijacked machines that criminals or security agencies use to spread malicious software, empty bank accounts and launch attacks.

This one, called Beebone, used software that updated itself as many as 19 times a day, making it hard to shut down. A pair of malicious programs re-downloaded each other -- an insurance policy in case one of them were to be removed.

Europol isn't naming any of the victims of the botnet.

%@AP Links

188-v-31-(Charles de Ledesma, correspondent)--A new group of global cybercrime fighters has pulled the plug on a botnet called Beebone. Correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports. ((A botnet is a collection of Internet-connected programs communicating with other similar programs in order to perform tasks)) (9 Apr 2015)

<<CUT *188 (04/09/15)££ 00:31

APPHOTO PW102: Raj Samani, chief technology officer of Intel Security's Europe, Middle East and Africa division speaks during an internet security conference in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, April 9, 2015. A new group of international cybercrime fighters claimed one of its first kills Thursday, pulling the plug on malicious servers that hijacked at least 12,000 machines, most of them in the United States. The move is a big step for the Cybercrime Action Taskforce, set up in September in a bid to go after top-level Internet crime. A host of internet security groups, including Intel Security, Kaspersky and Shadowserver, provided assistance. (AP Photo/Paul White) (9 Apr 2015)

<<APPHOTO PW102 (04/09/15)££

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Most recent World stories

Related topics

World
The Associated Press

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast