UK and Finnish Police have arrested three alleged members of a group called “m00p” that is suspected to have sent Trojans via spam email. Computers and servers were also seized at residential addresses in Finland, Suffolk in England, and Scotland. The Metropolitan Police stated, “They have been primarily targeting UK businesses since at least 2005, and during this time thousands of computers are known to have been infected across the globe."
“Today's arrests will send a clear worldwide signal to the authors of malicious software that national borders will not limit the ability and commitment of law enforcement authorities to clamp down on this criminal activity”, said Detective Constable Bob Burls, of the Metropolitan Police Computer Crime Unit, triumphantly. However, Graham Cluley of Sophos took a more measured view, “It's great to see one less virus writing gang, but the sad fact is, however, that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg.”
The m00p gang have been linked with many viruses and Trojans. One of them, the Stinx trojan (also known as Breplibot.C) utilised the Dony DRM vulnerability to hide its processes. There has been no news of Sony executives being arrested for their part in enabling this gang’s activities.
