The botnet was being monitored and was rendered inactive in December, following a major investigation conducted by the FBI, the Spanish Guardia Civil and security experts around the world.More info at BBC News.
The network of computers was designed to steal sensitive information, including usernames, passwords, banking credentials and credit card data, from social media sites and other online e-mail services.
One of the arrested men had 800,000 pieces of personal data on his machine.
13 million strong Mariposa botnet taken down
Posted on Wednesday, March 03 2010 @ 20:59 CET by Thomas De MaesschalckSpanish police have arrested three owners of the Mariposa botnet. This was one of world's biggest networks of infected computers, it was made up of nearly 13 million computers in 190 countries. According to the investigators, more than half of Fortune 1000 companies and more than 40 major banks were infected by the botnet.
