US officials charge 60 in Zeus crime ring

Law enforcement groups have continued their pursuit of the Zeus malware botnet operators with arrests in the US.

Federal and state authorities have charged more than 60 people with criminal offences related to the Zeus botnet. Earlier this week, London police arrested 19 individuals believed to be connected to Zeus fraud schemes.

"These arrests show that some of the criminal groups behind Zeus are doing a poor job in covering their tracks," said Mickey Boodaei, chief executive of online security firm Trusteer.

"The police did a great job in tracing this group and gathering information that can facilitate their arrest."

Zeus has become one of the more notorious cyber crime tools in recent months. Rather than redirect users to phishing sites, the malware intercepts and injects attack code into otherwise legitimate web pages, allowing account data to be harvested from sites the user trusts.

Authorities said that many of the arrests were related to the activities of money mules who transfer funds from the compromised bank account into their own legitimate ones for a small commission.

The money is then sent to botnet operators by wire transfer to be laundered and safely sent overseas.

Mules can often work without knowledge of the criminal nature of their activities, since they are responding to seemingly legitimate job applications as sales co-ordinators.

Most find out their criminal association only after law enforcement intervenes.