Virus suspects arrested in UK and Finland

The Metropolitan Police and Finnish authorities have arrested three men suspected of writing and infecting computers with malware.

The Metropolitan Police's Computer Crime Unit, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI Finland) and the Finnish Pori Police Department, have arrested a 63-year-old man in Suffolk, a 28-year-old man in Scotland, and a 19-year-old man in Finland.

The men are suspected of being members of the M00P virus-writing gang.

The virus writing gang is believed to have chosen the name of their group after an episode of the South Park cartoon series where the characters formed a band called 'Moop'.

The group are believed to have written malware in order to create a zombie network (or botnet) of compromised computers under their control.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security company Sophos, said:
“Zombie computers can be used by criminal hackers to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks, spread spam messages or to steal confidential information and commit identity theft.

“Every computer owner needs to take steps to reduce the chances of their computer being turned into a zombie under the control of hackers.

“More and more criminals around the globe are being tempted by the anonymity the internet offers to commit their crimes online.”

Sophos recommends that companies and individuals automatically updated malware protection to reduce the risk of infection.

http://www.sophos.com