According to a report from Russian newspaper, a group of 20 people who served as its malware development team, were arrested by the Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny and the Federalnaya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii (federal security service of Russia, FSB) in cities around Ukraine.
Over $250 million has been stolen by the members of the botnet ring, which had roughly 20 members aged between 25 and 30. "Our experts did an enormous amount of work, which resulted in identifying the head of this criminal group, the owner and operator of a specialized banking botnet, identifying the control servers, and identifying the directing of traffic from popular websites in order to spread malware infection," said Ilya Sachkov, chief executive of Group-IB,
As recently as December, Carpberp fetched $40,000 per kit. Carberp malware was used as part of the "Eurograbber" botnet system uncovered late last year that went after both PCs and smartphones in its financial fraud campaign.
Like other banking Trojans, Carberp could intercept information which could be used to break into online banking accounts and transfer funds. Its mobile component allows criminals to steal mobile transaction authentication numbers (mTANs) sent by banks to authorize specific transactions.
Each of them worked remotely, and were responsible for the development of one part of the malware, officials said. Carberp was constantly modified and updated to ensure it would evade antivirus detection. If found guilty, under current law, they could face up to five years in prison.
