Earlier this morning the Federal Bureau of Investigation published an update to their crack down on BotNet’s termed “Operation Bot Roast”. The first phase commenced in June of this year and today announced phase two of the operation. The most interesting part of todays announcement was the results of the operation to date.
The collective toll revealed so far in our operation has been significant, both at a national level and a personal level. To date, we’ve uncovered more than $20 million in economic losses. In one case, a victim confirmed damages of nearly $20,000 in denial of service attacks via botnets.
It’s fantastic to see that the FBI appreciate the realistic dangers of BotNet’s and phishing and are acting although at this point it’s still a drop in the ocean. On a positive note, they did uncover a Denial of Service attack against a major University in Philadelphia which they disabled. Also, they sentenced three people involved in a phishing scheme against a Midwest bank.
The report is available on the FBI website.