Last year, we shared details about our success in holding operators of the Glupteba botnet responsible for their targeting of online users. We noted that our work was not done and that we would continue raising awareness around issues and working to disrupt groups looking to take advantage of users. Today, we’re sharing another milestone in that work.
Yesterday, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York unsealed our civil action against the malware distributors of Cryptbot, which we estimate infected approximately 670,000 computers this past year and targeted users of Google Chrome to steal their data. We’re targeting the distributors who are paid to spread malware broadly for users to download and install, which subsequently infects machines and steals user data. Cybercriminals often operate like businesses, specializing in a particular function, and partner with other criminal specialists to profit off harm to innocent users. This lawsuit targeting Cryptbot’s malware distributors shows our commitment to protecting users from each level of the cybercriminal ecosystem.