Microsoft and the FBI have combined forces to strike a major blow against one of the world's biggest cyber crime networks, responsible for stealing more than $500m (£323m) from bank accounts.
Aided by authorities in more than 80 countries, the FBI and Microsoft's Digital Crime Unit has knocked out at least 1,000 of the suspected 1,400 malicious computer networks operating Citadel botnets. The Citadel network is thought to have maliciously installed keylogging software on over five million computers, with information regularly beamed back to hackers' servers.
It has allowed cyber criminals to access data such as login details to online bank accounts - thus allowing them to steal money from dozens of financial organisations and banks, including American Express, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, PayPal, HSBC, Royal Bank of Canada and Wells Fargo.
While no criminals have been identified in person, impeding their actions comes as a major boost for the authorities.
"The bad guys will feel the punch in the gut," said Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.
Citadel is one of the biggest botnets in operation, with its high infiltration rate on PCs suspected to be largely due to pirated version of Windows that contain malicious software.
The FBI wants increased collaboration with private firms and the authorities in other nations in order to help tackle the worldwide problem of cyber crime.
"We are upping the game in our level of commitment in going after botnet creators and distributors," said FBI assistant executive director Richard McFeely.
"This is a more concerted effort to engage our foreign partners to assist us in identifying, locating and - if we can - get US criminal process on these botnet creators and distributors."
Earlier this year, Microsoft teamed up with Symantec to take down the Bamital clickfraud botnet
