A recently foiled botnet operation has turned out to
be 15 times larger that police initially thought.
On further investigation, authorities found that the operation had put about
1.5 million computers and servers under its control. The crime ring was thought
to have created a botnet of 100,000 systems, which they claimed was the largest
ever detected.
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A botnet is a collection of computers infected with a
computer worm which puts the system under the worm creator's control without the
owner's knowledge.
Botnets are commonly used to host illegal web content such as child
pornography, to send out spam or to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS)
attacks.
Dutch police earlier this month made three arrests in the case. They have now
extended the pre-trial imprisonment of two of the suspects, the 19 year-old
prime suspect and a 22 year-old accomplice.
A third member of the group has been released for "personal reasons",
according to Dutch IT news website Webwereld.
The 22 year-old is likely to face additional blackmail charges for launching
a DDoS attack against an unnamed US corporation. The group has already been
linked to another DDoS attack against a corporation in the US.
Other charges include computer hacking, destruction of automated networks and
installing adware and
spyware.
The Dutch public attorney said in a press release that he expects to make
additional arrests in this case.
Police apprehended the trio on 4 October, confiscating computers, cash and a
sports car during searches of the suspects' homes.
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