Europol stops malware that infected millions of computers

The European Cybercrime Centre at Europol, the European police agency, coordinated the operation out of its headquarters in The Hague, targeting the so-called Ramnit botnet, a network of computers infected with malware.

Working with investigators from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and UK, it was assisted by AnubisNetworks, a unit of BitSight Technologies, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Symantec Corp (SYMC.O) in dismantling the server infrastructure used by the criminals.

The hackers had successfully attacked some 3.2 million computers since 2010, though investigators believe only about 350,000 are currently infected with the Ramnit malware. The malware, installed through links on spam e-mail or infected websites, enabled culprits to take control of the computers and use them for criminal activities.