Hacker’s arrested for infecting Millions of Devices!

In China, 11 suspected hackers have been arrested for creating the notorious Fireball malware. This hot malware managed to infect more than 250 million devices all around the world, and among those 20% were big corporate companies.

The Fireball malware was discovered a few months ago and while it was up and running the hackers managed earn an estimated 80 million yuan. How? Through forced browser advertisements which generated fake clicks and traffic to other websites.

The malware likely spread so fast though spam and cracked pirated programs and applications.

When Fireball was discovered, they tracked where most of the infections where located:

India – 25.3 million 

Brazil – 24.1 million

Mexico – 16.1 million

Indonesia – 13.1 million

US – 5.5 million

Fireball has clearly managed to impact an astounding amount of devices, so much so that their numbers make the WannaCry ransomware attack look pretty tiny – it was estimated to have only infected about 200 000 devices.

So how were the Fireball hackers busted?

The Fireball malware took advantage of the legitimate software company, Rafotech. A local security researcher managed to come across their scam and exposed the data to the police.

It is reported that 11 employees were arrested and charged with developing the malware and destroying the computer systems.

Here are some helpful articles about ransomware/malware etc. and how to protect your devices:

https://computer-guyz.blogspot.co.za/2017/05/8-important-ransomware-prevention-tips.html
https://computer-guyz.blogspot.co.za/2016/07/ransomware-how-to-learn-from-past.html
https://computer-guyz.blogspot.co.za/2016/06/8-steps-to-prepare-you-for-ransomware.html

If you have the suspicion that any of your devices have been infected by malware, do not hesitate to contact The Computer Guyz immediately on 087 001 0511/2 or email helpdesk@thecomputerguyz.co.za