Friday, October 01, 2010

The Big One: Zeus Operation Trident BreACH

The FBI's Cyber Division has just concluded a press conference where they announced the culmination of Operation Trident BreACH. Finally we can tell "the rest of the story" of the Zeus arrests that began in the UK earlier this week and were followed by Operation ACHing Mule in New York yesterday.

This operation began in Omaha Nebraska in May of 2009 when FBI agents were alerted that 46 separate bank accounts had received ACH payments that seemed to be tied to malware. Unveiled in this press release publicly for the first time is the fact that this particular Zeus group had attempted to ACH transfer $220 Million, and actually got away with $70 million!

On September 30th, the Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, had fifty SBU officers as well as members of their elite tactical operations team hit eight locations looking for the leadership of this international financial cybercrime ring. They were able to arrest five of the ringleaders, who are now being questioned.

This operation included the FBI's Omaha Cyber Crime Task Force, New York Money Mule Working Group, and Newark Cyber Crime Task Force, the Netherlands Policy Agency, the Ukrainian SBU, the Netherlands Police Agency's National High-Tech Crime Unit, and the United Kingdom's Metropolitan Police Service.

Pim Takkenberg, team leader of the Netherlands National High-Tech Crime Unit was quoted as saying their "involvement in this international operation is representative of the commitment that the KLPD and the National Prosecutor's Office have made to the fight against cyber crime in addition to the need for worldwide cooperation among all partners."

Well said, Pim!

Hopefully even more details about these arrests will be revealed in the near future.

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