An Ottawa man has been arrested following an international cybercrime investigation into a major “botnet” operation that is alleged to have infected millions of devices with malware.
The Ontario Provincial Police cybercrime investigations team launched an investigation in January into two botnets — named Kimwolf and Aisuru — that police alleged were responsible for some of the largest Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks recorded to date.
A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to overwhelm and disrupt a server or network by flooding it with fraudulent traffic. Hackers employ botnets — co-ordinated internet-connected devices controlled by the hacker — to carry out cyberattacks.
“DDoS attacks are borderless crimes,” OPP Det. Staff Sgt. Matthew Ellwood said in a statement. “The actions of cybercriminals can cause disruption here at home even when the attack is launched from thousands of kilometres away. That’s why understanding DDoS attacks at a global level is essential to protecting the public and explaining the instability they cause.”
Law enforcement agencies in Canada, the United States and Germany conducted independent operations targeting botnet administrators and botnet infrastructure in parallel to the OPP investigation, the statement added.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, some victims reported the DDoS attacks resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in losses and remediation expenses. Cybercriminals allegedly used botnets to launch hundreds of thousands of attacks, in some cases demanding extortion payments from victims, according to the Justice Department.
The Aisuru botnet is alleged to have issued more than 200,000 DDoS attack commands and the KimWolf botnet allegedly issued more than 25,000 DDoS attack commands,
Infected devices were “enslaved” by the botnet operators, according to a March 19 media release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that identified two other botnets that were not connected to the Canadian investigation.
“The operators then used a ‘cybercrime as a service’ model to sell access to the infected devices to other cybercriminals,” according to U.S. officials. The operators and their customers then allegedly forced the hijacked devices “to participate in hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks, targeting computers and servers located throughout the world.”
The DOJ said some of the cyberattacks measured 30 Terabits per second, which were “record-breaking” attacks.
Officers raided and searched a home in Ottawa on March 19, with investigators seizing multiple electronic devices.
Jacob Butler, 23, was charged on May 20 with unauthorized use of computers, possession of devices to obtain unauthorized use of computer systems or to commit mischief and mischief in relation to computer data.
Butler remained in custody, police said May 21, and was scheduled to appear in court on May 26.
He is alleged to be connected to two of the botnets — Kimwolf and Aisuru — that were also identified by U.S. investigators.
“Cybercrime poses a growing threat to personal, organizational and national security,” the OPP said in a news release, and it encouraged individuals and organizations to adopt strong cybersecurity practices and to report any suspicious activity to local police, the RCMP’s cybercrime and fraud website or the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
The OPP investigative team thanked counterparts with the RCMP and Sûreté du Québec, along with supporting federal investigations in the United States and Germany.
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