Police Catch Money Mules Operating with Zeus

American police from U.S' Wisconsin state recently detained two Moldovan inhabitants on the belief that they acted like money mules and illegally moved stolen money across bank accounts via the use of the notorious Trojan, Zeus. Virus Bulletin published this on November 9, 2010.

The individuals, Lilian Adam and Dorin Codreanu were men who were chased during a busting, in the latter part of September 2010, of a gang of money mules that stayed in USA enjoying J1 student visas. Both aged 21, the culprits apparently assisted in transferring cash abroad which was filched out of accounts of U.S organizations using malicious software that hackers in Eastern Europe installed. It's suspected that this gang stole over $70m belonging to mid-sized and small companies during the last few months.

Additional investigations by the Specialized Services Center for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption of the Moldovan government disclosed that it had arrested 6 other persons as well, doubted as assisting the same global gang that employed Zeus for laundering money. Krebsonsecurity published this on November 8, 2010.

The 6 individuals arrested, reportedly, worked in banks, with one employed in the Bank of Moldova. Said the Moldovan police, the culprits apparently engaged in seizing 'Money Gram' and 'Western Union' payments which money mules had transferred out of the country to Eastern Europe.

These individuals too launched their attack using the ZBot another name for Zeus, which's a malware group used for compromising people's computers and then adding them to its malicious network of bots. Understandably, during the recent years, online crooks have employed various editions of ZBot for siphoning cash out of Internet bank accounts, capturing e-mail/FTP details and login information of social-networking websites.

State security researchers, organized cyber-criminals were realizing the real extent of botnets' financial potential more-and-more as also using them to serve increasingly wicked purposes.

Nonetheless, it is extremely heartening to find that police is combating cyber-crime, a rising problem of the present time. While people belonging to the Internet's underground are becoming more global as well as organized, they require knowing that in case caught they may've to undergo severe punishment.

Related article: Police Arrests Six Suspects Associated With TJX Credit Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 11/20/2010