The U.S. Department of Justice said authorities disrupted a sophisticated cybertheft scheme and arrested its Moldovan perpetrator.
The Moldovan administrator, Andrey Ghinkul, was arrested on August 28 in Cyprus, and the United States is seeking his extradition on multiple charges including criminal conspiracy, wire fraud, and bank fraud. the department said.
"The indictment alleges that Ghinkul and his co-conspirators used malware to steal banking credentials and then, using the stolen credentials, to initiate fraudulent electronic funds transfers of millions of dollars from the victims' bank accounts into the accounts of money mules, who further transferred the stolen funds to other members of the conspiracy," the department said.
The FBI attributes at least $10 million in losses in the United States to the botnet set up by Ghinkul, which was known as "Bugat", "Cridex," or "Dridex."
A botnet is a network of infected computers that can be used for the theft of confidential personal and financial information.
Actions taken by the United Kingdom and the United States substantially disrupted the malware, the department said.
