WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Hackers have remotely controlled about 2.5 million computers of unsuspecting owners to commit crimes using computer robot networks called "botnets," the FBI said Thursday.The bureau in 2005 launched Operation Bot Roast to stop this emerging type of cyber attack, which the FBI estimates has resulted in $20 million in losses and theft, including one scheme that bilked a Midwest financial institution out of millions.
More than 1 million computers were infected with botnets when the FBI announced Bot Roast in June, and roughly 1.5 million more have been identified since then, the FBI said. Industry numbers suggest there are as many as 5 million infected computers.
According to an FBI news release, New Zealand authorities in tandem with the FBI this week searched the home of an individual -- identified only by the cyber name, "AKILL" -- whose "elite international botnet coding group" is suspected of infecting more than 1 million computers. AKILL is not in custody, the FBI said. Since the operation was announced, 13 search warrants have been served around the world, and eight individuals -- in Washington, Pennsylvania, Florida, California and Kentucky -- have been indicted or found guilty of crimes related to botnets. Such crimes include fraud, identity theft and denial-of-service attacks in which computer Web sites and other resources are made unavailable.
In one denial-of-service attack, Jason Michael Downey, 24, operated rizon.net, a system for chat rooms known as an Internet Relay Chat. Downey was sentenced to a year in prison for launching numerous denial-of-service attacks on other IRC networks and their operators.
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