Chain of 3.2 million ‘zombie computers’ disrupted

Law enforcement officials in Europe are claiming victory after disrupting a chain of 3.2 million computers worldwide that were surreptitiously controlled by hackers.

Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre targeted the cybercrime ring by seizing control of its servers. The hacked PCs were acting as a botnet, or a network of hijacked computers programmed to perpetrate mass online fraud. Computer scientists sometimes refer to victimized machines as “zombie computers.”

{mosads}”We worked together to shut down the command and control servers for the network in various countries across the European Union,” Paul Gillen, head of operations at the cybercrime centre, told Reuters. “The criminals have lost control of the infrastructure they were using.”

The botnet — known as “Ramnit” — had been operating since 2012. Computers were typically infected by malicious code, or malware, installed when users clicked on spam emails or dangerous links.

While botnet used computers around the world for its “zombie” army, most affected users were in Britain, according to Reuters. An investigation there is still ongoing, and an official would not comment on any forthcoming arrests.

Europol was assisted in its effort by officials from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain, as well as tech companies Microsoft and Symantec, Reuters reported.