FBI Accusing Group of Criminals Involved in Click-Fraud

According to FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), it along with its global associates has accused 6 persons of carrying out one advanced campaign of click-fraud, which yielded them USD counting a few millions, published Eweek.com dated November 9, 2011.

Approximately 4m PCs from 100 countries contracted infection due to the six-member cyber-ring's activity involving malware, which enabled it to pocket around $14m via manipulation of Internet ads, the agency stated. On November 8, 2011, cops detained 6 nationals from Estonia. One more from Russia is still operating, believes FBI.

Meanwhile, USA wants that the miscreants be moved to New York so that they can be queried while the country's Office-of-Attorney believes that the accused had committed 5 instances of computer-infiltration and wire-crime. Among those charged, one as well understandably, committed money-laundering in 22 instances.

Indeed, during "Operation Ghost Click" the name, which FBI has designated, the accused contaminated PCs with DNSChanger malware for getting the maximum benefit towards making sure that end-users accessed the cyber-ring's Internet ad affiliates' websites. The malevolent DNSChanger reset the Domain Name System (DNS) server configurations of the attacked computers so victims could be diverted onto one DNS server that happened to be under the defendants' control which subsequently diverted those victims' browsers onto click-fraud websites that yielded them money as fee from its users.

For instance if end-users followed a web-link obtainable on any web-page from online-search, they'd find their browsers diverted onto another page that the accused wanted rather than the formers intended site.

Similarly, although if a contaminated end-user performed an online-search to get at the iTunes store of Apple via following the genuine web-link, he'd instead get diverted onto www.idownload-store-music.com that posed as selling Apple products, while actually encouraged click fraud.

Assistant Director Janice Fedarcyk of FBI at the field office of New York stated that the extent to which the above cyber-thieves targeted users globally showed that the underground crime-world were quite unpredictable. According to him, while the Internet was all-encompassing because of its high utility, it was a place where exploitation by mal-intended people existed. ABCnews.go.com published this on November 9, 2011.

Related article: FBI’s ICCC Annual Report Discusses Fraudulent and Non-Fraudulent Complaints

» SPAMfighter News - 11/16/2011