The world's largest bot network has been dismantled, the alleged Chinese mastermind has been arrested, and $29 million in cryptocurrency has been seized.

A Chinese citizen has been arrested in Singapore, suspected of organizing a large botnet used to steal billions of dollars. This network, known as "911 S5," is likely one of the most extensive in the world, affecting computers in nearly 200 countries and facilitating numerous crimes such as financial fraud, identity theft, and child exploitation. This was stated by FBI Director Christopher Wray. According to investigators, Yunhe Wang earned at least $99 million by selling access to this network to criminals who carried out their schemes.

A botnet is a combination of infected computers that hackers control remotely to carry out mass cyberattacks and fraud. These "zombie machines" are under the control of criminals and can be used both to collect personal information and to monitor user activity and install malicious applications. At the age of 35, Wang was arrested in Singapore last week, and $29 million in cryptocurrency was seized from him, reported Bret Literman, deputy assistant director of the FBI's cyber operations.

According to the indictment filed in Texas, the botnet has been used for theft since 2014.billions of dollarsat financial institutions, credit card issuers, and loan users, as well as in government lending programs. There were reportedly about613,000infected computers only inU.S.U.S.