The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced the successful shutdown of the world’s largest botnet, likely the biggest ever. The operation was a joint effort between the DOJ, the FBI, and other international agencies. The botnet, known as 911 S5, was reportedly responsible for stealing $5.9 billion and linked to other crimes.
The botnet was created and operated by Chinese national YunHe Wang, who also holds citizenship in St Kitts and Nevis. Wang is now facing charges of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, substantive computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted on all counts, he could face a maximum penalty of 65 years in prison.
The 911 S5 botnet operated from about 150 servers worldwide and hacked into more than 19 million Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in almost 200 countries. The botnet was used to carry out cyber attacks, large-scale fraud, child exploitation, harassment, bomb threats, and export violations. The US estimated that more than half a million fraudulent unemployment insurance claims had originated from compromised IP addresses, resulting in a loss of more than $5.9 billion.
Wang allegedly sold access to the IP addresses and received approximately $99 million. He allegedly bought property in the US, St Kitts and Nevis, China, Singapore, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. Assets worth a total of around $60 million have been seized or identified for seizure, including a Ferrari, a Rolls-Royce, and several watches.
The operation to take down the botnet involved law enforcement agencies in Singapore and Thailand, as well as technology giant Microsoft.
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