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Security Worms IT

Two Arrested For Zbot Trojan 95

Posted by samzenpus from the sorry-about-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit have made Europe's first arrests in the battle against the ZeuS or Zbot Trojan which threatened to compromise thousands of computers. Officers arrested a man and woman, both aged 20 years, in Manchester for offenses under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act and the 2006 Fraud Act. Both suspects were interviewed by PCeU detectives and have been bailed for further in-depth inquiries to be completed. The arrests in connection with the malware represent some of the first in the world, and the first in Europe to combat the distribution and control of ZeuS."
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Two Arrested For Zbot Trojan More

Two Arrested For Zbot Trojan

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  • 2 Down... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by houstonbofh ( 602064 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @10:28PM (#30152632)
    2 down, a billion to go. Sorry, I just can't get excited about 2 people caught.

    • Re:2 Down... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tynin ( 634655 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @10:30PM (#30152646)
      But it is good to see more women programmers coming into the field.

      • Re:2 Down... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @10:46PM (#30152750)

        But it is good to see more women programmers coming into the field.

        The downside is Trojan writers now can breed.

        • Re:2 Down... (Score:5, Funny)

          by hcmtnbiker ( 925661 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @11:00PM (#30152842)
          Odd, I was under the impression they used the trojans to stop from accidentally breeding.

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Odd, I was under the impression they used the trojans to stop from accidentally breeding.

            The Trojan company was started in a desperate attempt by computer makers to keep down the numbers of trojan writers. Sadly having never seen a female trojan writer most male trojan writers couldn't figure out what to do with the company's product. A few creative trojan writers did finally figure out a use, those can be spotted by the long balloons hanging from their computer desks.

          • I am named after Trojans' home city. Yeah I guess my mom had little imagination. ;-) I RTFA but I don't know where these arrests happened. UK?

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by Dupple ( 1016592 )
              Yeah, North West England - the UK

              • Yeah, North West England - the UK

                Manchester, to be precise. I'd have guessed Liverpool, but I don't suppose they have any computers there.

                • I'd have guessed Liverpool, but I don't suppose they have any computers there.

                  All been stolen by those thieving bastards from [insert housing estate of choice]?

          • Odd, I was under the impression that you were referring to Trojan condoms. Trojans stop people from breeding.

            Oh, so this is Slashdot. Very well, carry on...

    • Re:2 Down... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by socceroos ( 1374367 ) on Thursday November 19, 2009 @12:39AM (#30153312)
      I would be excited to know how they got caught. There might be an enjoyable story there.

      I would have imagined that if these two were smart then they would have completely covered/obfuscated their tracks every step of the way. From propagating the first copy of the trojan to making sure any profits/information was sent through an elaborate network of communication-encrypted proxies before arriving on a remote server from which they could connect to using a similar but different network of communication-encrypted proxies and download/view the information.

      I'd really love to know if they were just stupid, or if someone else was just way smarter. For the stories sake, I hope its the latter.
      • Who really cares about the real story, certainly not Hollywhooowhood, it will end up making Swordfish 2, with flying skateboards "interfaces" in "cyberspace"... with mysterious "Hydra" servers, uncrackeable government codes cracked with "keyloggers" (sic, seriously, wtf?!) while getting a blowjob.
        As long as there is a blowjob I don't really care about the story, it is good to go. (Now thinking of it, maybe the Blowjob was a reference to Blowfish?... nah, I am probably thinking too hard.)

      • Re:2 Down... (Score:4, Informative)

        by auric_dude ( 610172 ) on Thursday November 19, 2009 @04:24AM (#30154142)
        The Guardian would suggest that the met Police e-crime unit were involved in the take down http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/18/zeus-zbot-trojan-virus [guardian.co.uk] and the e-crime unit http://www.kable.co.uk/government-ecrime-review-home-office-14jul09 [kable.co.uk] is part of GCHQ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/25/cyberspace-war-computer-hacking-fraud [guardian.co.uk]. So may well be more to this than meets the eye.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Marcika ( 1003625 )
          Sorry, I fail to see the link - I read all three articles and I still don't see the link between this arrest (which was a Met job, i.e. London/national police) and the GCHQ Cyber-Security Operations Centre (who are spooks, not policemen)...

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by LordSnooty ( 853791 )
          In the neither of the last two articles there does it say that the Met Police's e-crime unit is part of GCHQ. The Met Police is the police force of London.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hab136 ( 30884 )

        I'd really love to know if they were just stupid, or if someone else was just way smarter

        The vast, vast majority of criminals are caught either because of stupidity on their part or someone squealing.

        • I'd really love to know if they were just stupid, or if someone else was just way smarter

          The vast, vast majority of criminals are caught either because of stupidity on their part or someone squealing.

          A cop friend of mine used to say that "All criminals are stupid." Until I replied with, "No. Just the ones you meet."

          • I'd really love to know if they were just stupid, or if someone else was just way smarter

            The vast, vast majority of criminals are caught either because of stupidity on their part or someone squealing.

            A cop friend of mine used to say that "All criminals are stupid." Until I replied with, "No. Just the ones you meet."

            Not a very important cop then? Most politicians like to be seen glad handing the Chief Constable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mpe ( 36238 )
      2 down, a billion to go.

      Probably thousands or millions to go.

      Sorry, I just can't get excited about 2 people caught.

      Especially when these two are the first to be arrested for this kind of crime in the whole of Europe.

  • Great news (Score:5, Funny)

    by T Murphy ( 1054674 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @10:38PM (#30152700) Journal
    With the cops on the hunt, it sounds like people writing malicious code will have to be spending a lot more time indoors.

    Oh, wait...

    • indoors, but without an internet connection.

      However, all they have to do is claim they're addicted to the internet, and that withholding it is against their human rights, and they'll be provided with 24/7 unlimited download with large capacity bandwidth for free.

      So its a good job we're imprisoning these people to punish them.

      Oh, wait....

  • it would be interesting to find out if they are merely patsies for a larger effort, or are genuinely isolated and inspired script kiddies

    • Or whether they are convicted or let off. We always hear about arrests but rarely convictions.

  • They've both been bailed, so presumably they're now furiously DBAN'ing everything they own.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jimicus ( 737525 )

      I'd like to see them do that. There's no earthly way they'd have been arrested without the police having first made sure they had seized every computer those people had even been suspected of breathing on.

  • So this is the program that allows me to auto aim in Quake 2, yet is still pleasurable and safe to use.

    I guess this sounds alright.

  • .. and thinking "20 year old woman" is tantamount to slashrotica?
  • why the Met had to get involved. surely, every time the Police in London want to arrest someone in Manchester (usually terror related!) they should be the ones doing the support. Or is it another case of our Southern masters not trusting anyone north of the Watford Gap?
    • Well, the Met is probably the most corrupt police force in the UK, the one that manages to kill innocent bystanders, the one that manages to shoot innocent people and then the person in charge gets promoted instead of being jailed, the one that has the most complaints against it and the lowest rate of action on complaints, the one whose last head had to be fired by the Mayor because the Government wouldn't do it, the one which had to be investigated for corruption by another police force - so naturally you

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by XSpud ( 801834 )

      It's because the UK's e-crime unit is part of the Metropolitan Police. I guess it doesn't make sense for each police authority to have it's own e-crime unit.

      PCeU - Police Central e-crime Unit [police.uk]

    • I'm guessing, but it could be because the Greater Manchester Police Authority does not have a sufficiently-resourced e-crime unit to take on this case.

      Perhaps in these cases the arresting officers, or at least a support team, must have appropriate training in technology-related crimes, or risk the charges not sticking once the case gets to the courts.

      Think how important it might be to make sure all relevant devices are confiscated at the point of arrest. An untrained eye could miss something vital.

      Or, it c

      • It's just that every time the Met comes up here, they bungle the case big time and those arrested have to be released, even in the midst of over-whelming evidence against them. Either that, or they blatantly get the wrong person but release all sorts of emotive "facts" about what they were arrested for which tries to convince everyone (or maybe just themselves) theyve got the right person. GMP are trained at least as well as anyone else in the country, and a lot better than some - they know exactly how to d

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mpe ( 36238 )
          It's just that every time the Met comes up here, they bungle the case big time and those arrested have to be released, even in the midst of over-whelming evidence against them. Either that, or they blatantly get the wrong person but release all sorts of emotive "facts" about what they were arrested for which tries to convince everyone (or maybe just themselves) theyve got the right person.

          That's in addition to Met Officers not being arrested and tried for killing members of the public. Something which has

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