Europol announced the take down of a massive criminal network that is responsible for the infection of half a million computers worldwide.

The network was dubbed "Avalanche" and Europol made the statement that: the criminal network "was used as a delivery platform to launch and manage mass global malware attacks and money mule recruiting campaigns."

The network would facilitate the sending of emails laced with malware to steal credentials cfor other criminals. They also would facilitate the sending of massive DDoS attacks.

"Victims of the malware infections were identified in more than 180 countries."

Damages world-wide amounted to over "hundreds of millions of euros". Germany was the country where the first sign of the gang was detected and it accounted for some six million euros ($6.3 million) in losses from online banking systems.

In the raid by Europol, five top network bosses were arrested, 37 servers were seized and 39 premises were searched.

"Avalanche functioned like a company -- and we have arrested its 'chief executive' and 'board members'," said Fernando Ruiz, operations chief at Europol's EC3 Cybercrime Centre.They had different branches that catered for different crimes -- and even had a customer service section to help their clients."

Authorities also shut down 221 servers and either seized or blocked some 800,000 internet domains in this operation that was being worked for four years.

Source: Security Week