Jane Edwards
Symantec has helped FBI crack down on cyber threat actors associated with an advertising fraud scheme, dubbed 3ve, which compromises consumer devices to drive fake internet traffic to advertisements.
The bureau-led Operation Eversion resulted in the seizure of systems associated with the 3ve ad-fraudulent botnet, arrest of three people and five more indictments, the company said Wednesday.
The cyber criminals carried out fraudulent traffic to ads through botnets run by Kovter and Miuref malware families that direct ad placement on counterfeit websites and generate revenue for threat actors.
Symantec CEO Greg Clark said the operation seeks to reflect the company’s efforts to share threat intelligence data with industry partners and law enforcement agencies in support of takedown initiatives.
The company said the 3ve scam controlled over 1M IP addresses and infected up to 700K computers.
