Police arrest hackers after 13 million computers attacked

Published: 10:20PM GMT 02 March 2010

Spain"s Civil Guard pronounced it arrested 3 men suspected of using the supposed "Mariposa botnet", declared after the Spanish word for butterfly.

Mariposa had putrescent machines in 190 countries, in some-more than half of the world"s 1,000 largest companies, and in at slightest 40 big monetary institutions, according to dual internet security firms that helped Spanish officials crack the ring.

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Canadian association Defence Intelligence and Spanish organisation Panda Security assisted the Spanish forces in tracing the hackers.

"It was so nasty, we thought "We have to spin this off. We have to cut off the head,"" pronounced Chris Davis, CEO of Defence Intelligence, that detected the pathogen last year.

He combined that the ring was close down on Dec 23.

The pathogen was automatic to take all login certification and jot down each key cadence on an putrescent computer, afterwards send the interpretation behind to a "command and carry out centre," where the ringleaders stored the data.

"Basically they were going after anything that would have them money," Mr Davis said.

Mariposa primarily widespread by exploiting a disadvantage in web browsers.

It additionally infested machines by infecting USB mental recall sticks, he said.