A US court has recently unsealed a restraining order against a gang of alleged cybercrooks operating outside the country, based on a formal legal complaint from internet giant Google. The court order covers the CryptBot crew, who were accused of using Google product names, icons and trademarks to shill their rogue software distribution services, running “pay-per-install” services for software bundles that injected malware onto victims’ computers, and operating a botnet to steal data from hundreds of thousands of US victims. The restraining order demands that the criminals stop committing crimes, including no longer distributing malware, no longer running a botnet, no longer stealing victims’ data and no longer selling that stolen data on to other crooks. It also authorises Google to identify network providers whose services make this criminality possible, and to request them to take reasonable steps to stop the malware and the data theft. Additionally, the order covers blocking network traffic that is known to be going to or coming from domains associated with the CryptBot crew.
Key Points:
-A US court has recently unsealed a restraining order against a gang of alleged cybercrooks operating outside the country, based on a formal legal complaint from Google.
-The restraining order demands that the criminals stop committing crimes, including no longer distributing malware, no longer running a botnet, no longer stealing victims’ data and no longer selling that stolen data on to other crooks.
-It also authorises Google to identify network providers whose services make this criminality possible, and to request them to take reasonable steps to stop the malware and the data theft.
-The order covers blocking network traffic that is known to be going to or coming from domains associated with the CryptBot crew.
-To reduce your own risk of zombie malware compromise, stay away from sites offering unofficial downloads of popular software, beware of assuming that the first result from a search engine is the official site, consider running real-time malware blocking tools, and never be tempted to go for a pirated or cracked program.