The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has arrested Yun Wang, 35, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China and citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis by investment, for his alleged role in a botnet scam “used to commit crimes on a large scale.” cyber attacks.” “Widespread fraud, child exploitation, harassment, bomb threats and export violations.”
According to the May 29 indictment, Wang allegedly “created and deployed malware to compromise and harvest a network of millions of Windows personal computers worldwide” that affected more than 19 million IP addresses through the botnet 911 S5 between 2014 and 202. The accused then sold the hijacked IP addresses to cybercriminals to obtain cryptocurrencies with victims in over 200 countries and facilitated a full range of computer crimes, including financial fraud , identity theft and child exploitation.
A separate analysis by blockchain analytics firm Chainlysis shows that wallet addresses linked to Wang together contain more than $130 million in digital assets acquired through illicit bribes. The researchers wrote in Chainalysis:
“The 911 S5 botnet was able to provide these services by distributing free and deceptive VPN services to victims, which aim to provide users with better privacy while browsing the web. In fact, 911 S5 used backdoors in its code to illegally hijack the IP addresses of millions of people. This allowed 911 S5 administrators to earn millions of dollars each year from a subscription-based service that allows cybercriminals to use victims’ IP addresses.
Meanwhile, Justice Department law enforcement officials added:
“911 S5 officers allegedly targeted certain pandemic relief programs. “For example, the United States estimates that 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims originated from compromised IP addresses, resulting in a confirmed fraudulent loss exceeding $5.9 billion. »
The 23 domains and more than 70 servers that make up the backbone of Wang’s operations were seized in joint cooperation between law enforcement authorities in the United States, Singapore, Thailand and in Germany. Police say they were also able to seize assets worth $30 million related to the 911 S5.
Last month, Cointelegraph reported that China allegedly Trojanized US Bitcoin mining infrastructure through locally manufactured application-specific integrated circuit mining rigs. Experts say these platforms allow Chinese intelligence agencies to conduct electronic espionage operations and can target sensitive military installations, power grids or communications networks.
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