Microsoft Teams Up with FBI To Fight Cyber Crime

Microsoft Corp and the FBI launch an all-out search for the cyber criminals responsible for bank frauds.

A big cyber crime group which allegedly had stolen over $500 million from different bank accounts within 18 months is now being tracked by the Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit and the FBI. The group have used pirated copies of Windows OS infected by their malware to control over 5 million computers in 80 countries across the globe.

Several banks were affected such as American Express, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, PayPal, HSBC, Royal Bank of Canada, JPMorgan Chase, and many others. Unfortunately, the government still have no idea of the identity of the cyber crime group but they have named the head as John Doe No. 1 a.k.a ‘Aquabox’ and the investigators believe that he has 81 people working with him.

The FBI told Reuters that they have been working with Europol and other international crime agencies to identify the people behind these illegal operations. Search warrants were issued and will be served to anyone suspected to participate in their activities.

"We are upping the game in our level of commitment in going after botnet creators and distributors," FBI Assistant Executive Director Richard McFeely said in an interview. "This is a more concerted effort to engage our foreign partners to assist us in identifying, locating and - if we can - get U.S. criminal process on these botnet creators and distributors."

So far, Microsoft is able to shut down 1,000 malwares with 455 hosted in different parts of the U.S. The rest were scattered across the globe. However, the Digital Crime Unit based in Redmond, Washington noticed that among banks across the globe, only Ukraine and Russia were not infected. There were assumptions now that the cyber crime group may be based on those countries.