Acting on information from Facebook’s security team, the FBI said the suspects from Britain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru and the United States were arrested in the operation. They are suspected of having links to “Yahos”, a piece of malicious software that can be used to take control of victims’ computers and steal their banking and other login credentials. The FBI said criminals had created a “botnet” of 11 million remotely-controlled computers. Facebook helped in identifying the perpetrators and those affected by the malware. “Yahos targeted Facebook users from 2010 to October 2012, and security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats,” the FBI said.
“Facebook’s security team provided assistance to law enforcement throughout the investigation by helping to identify the root cause, the perpetrators, and those affected by the malware.”
