US DOJ busts botnet boss for setting up $130M cyber camera
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested 35-year-old Yune Wang, a citizen of the People's Republic of China and a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, for his involvement in an investment botnet scam involving scale fraud, child exploitation, harassment, bomb threats, and export violations.
In a May 29 indictment, Wang was charged with “creating and distributing malware to millions of residential Windows computers worldwide” between 2014 and 2020 through the 911 S5 botnet, which affected more than 19 million IP addresses. It sold hacked IP addresses to cybercriminals with “victims in more than 200 countries and facilitated a wide range of computer-based crimes, including money laundering, identity theft and child exploitation.”
A separate analysis by blockchain analytics firm Chainlysis showed that wallet addresses linked to Wang collectively held more than $130 million in digital assets obtained through illicit commissions. Chainalysis researchers wrote:
“The 911 S5 botnet was able to distribute these services to victims and provide deceptive free VPN services, which increases the privacy of users while browsing the web. In fact, the 911 S5 botnet used its code to hack millions of IP addresses illegally. Victims around the world this 911 S5 administrators have allowed cybercriminals to make millions of dollars a year with a subscription-based service that allows them to use victims' IP addresses.”
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials at the DOJ added:
“911 S5 customers were allegedly targeted in certain pandemic relief programs. For example, in the United States, 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims originated from compromised IP addresses, resulting in over $5.9 billion in fraudulent losses.”
Law enforcement authorities in the United States, Singapore, Thailand and Germany jointly seized 23 domains and more than 70 servers that were the backbone of Wang's operation. Police also seized $30 million worth of property related to the 911 S5.
Last month, Cointelegraph reported that China has a Trojan horse in the U.S. bitcoin mining infrastructure through homegrown app-based integrated circuit miners. The hacks allow Chinese intelligence agencies to target cyber-espionage, sensitive military facilities, power networks or communications networks, the expert said.
Related: 3AC's $700M Worldcoin windfall, China vs crypto spies: Asia Express
