An international law enforcement team has reportedly arrested a Chinese hacker accused of operating a massive botnet for nearly a decade and accumulating at least $99 million in profits by selling access to cybercriminals.
luck Reports On May 24, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of 35-year-old Wang Yunhe in connection with operating the “911 S5” botnet, which FBI Director Christopher Wray described as possibly the world’s largest. The botnet is a network of malware-infected computers that spans nearly 200 countries and is alleged to be involved in a variety of criminal activities, including identity theft, child exploitation, and financial fraud, including pandemic relief fraud.
According to an indictment filed in the Eastern District of Texas, cybercriminals who purchased access to the botnet from Wang have stolen billions of dollars from financial institutions, credit card issuers, account holders, and federal lending programs since 2014. As stated by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the botnet consisted of 19 million hijacked Windows computers, more than 613,000 in the United States alone, enabling them to commit a variety of crimes, including victimizing children, endangering public safety, and defrauding financial institutions and federal lending programs.
The economic impact of botnet activity was significant, with criminals who purchased access to the zombie network losing an estimated $5.9 billion to fraudulent relief programs. Authorities also reported that approximately 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims were filed from compromised IP addresses associated with the botnet.
Wang allegedly managed his botnet through 150 dedicated servers, half of which he leased from a U.S.-based online service provider. According to the indictment, Wang used his ill-gotten gains to acquire 21 properties in the U.S., China, Singapore, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and St. Kitts and Nevis, where he obtained citizenship by investment.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship.
