Feds smash international cybercrime ring with Power of Facebook

Re: $850 meeeeeelion!!!!

"Who said crime didn't pay."

Here's that statement again: The ten suspects are allegedly responsible for multiple variants of the Yahos malware, which is linked to more than 11 million computer takeovers and over $850m in losses using the Butterfly botnet"

Note that it does not say that the the gang made $850 million; it says that the losses were $850 million. Now it's possible that the gang did make that much but it is also possible that this astronomical figure includes the cost of securing computer systems and networks, lost productivity, money spent on investigations and consultants, time and effort spent by both affected customers and banks putting matters to right, and certainly quite a lot of expenses like that - in addition to the money that was actually gotten by the criminals.

It would have been nice if the article were more precise.

And it's cop press release dollars. The only thing more inflated is Hollywood download losses.