The FBI and Microsoft neutralized large kacker network

FBI and Microsoft jointly neutralized botnet Citadel, by which criminals stole more than $ 500 million. This was reported by the newspaper The Financial Times.

Total number of computers connected by a network Citadel, the two organizations is estimated at five million cars. The network consisted of more than a thousand botnets, each of which, in turn, consisted of thousands of infected computers. Hacking network acted in more than 90 countries.

As stated by the company Microsoft, completely destroy the Citadel is impossible because of its scale and fragmentation. The company has recommended to use antivirus and more frequent updates your computer's OS.


Neutralize Network FBI and Microsoft could after the decision of the District Court of California. According to the court, the corporation were transferred Citadel servers in the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In addition, Microsoft gave police information about other countries more than 80 people involved in the creation of a network. Most of the suspects are in the United States and Russia, are also considered to be involved hackers from Europe, Brazil, China and Australia.

Network Citadel appeared in early 2012. With the help of hackers stealing passwords and personal data of the user accounts of infected computers. Set for deployment of a single botnet was sold in closed forums at a price of 2.4 thousand dollars. The release of the key components of a private organization engaged in work on the principle normal software developer.