FBI busts 'scareware' ring that stole $74M
Connecting state and local government leaders
The scam, which operated internationally for three years and claimed about a million victims, consisted of infecting users’ computers and then selling them a phony fix.
The FBI has arrested two members of a criminal organization suspected of running an international “scareware” operation that stole a total of more than $74 million from about 1 million computer users over the last three years. The scam consisted of infecting users’ computers and then selling them a phony fix, the FBI said.
The arrests resulted from Operation Trident Tribunal, an ongoing cybercrime investigation involving the FBI and international law enforcement, the FBI announced in a release.
Two Latvians — Peteris Sahurovs, 22, and Marina Maslobojeva, 23 — were arrested in Latvia on charges filed in the federal District of Minnesota, which is one of the locations where the group allegedly operated during its three years in business.
More than 40 computers, servers and bank accounts were seized in the United States and Latvia, the FBI said.
In Minnesota, the defendants posed as representatives of an advertising agency and placed an ad for a hotel chain on the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s website, the FBI said.
The Star Tribune’s tech staff tested the ad and found nothing wrong with it, but after it began running, the group allegedly changed the code in the ad to infect the computer of anyone who clicked on it. The scareware froze users’ computers and then sent a series of pop-up ads offering antivirus software to fix the problem, for $129.
The antivirus software was fake, the FBI said, but if people paid up, the group would unfreeze their computers, although malicious software remained. Users who didn’t buy the “fix” found their data and filed to be inaccessible, according to the FBI.
The defendants, charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and computer fraud, face up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 on the wire fraud and conspiracy charges, and up to 10 years and $250,000 on the computer fraud charge.
The FBI said the arrests were the first by the Operation Trident Tribunal, an ongoing international effort that includes law enforcement teams from the bureau, Justice Department, U.S. Attorney’s office and investigators from Cyprus, Germany, Latvia, Ukraine, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, Canada and Great Britain.