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Slovenian police, in partnership with Spanish and US law enforcement authorities announced significant developments in a two-year investigation of the creator and operators of the Mariposa Botnet, a vast network of virus-infected computers used by criminal hackers.

The suspect and alleged author of Mariposa malware, a 23-year-old Slovenian citizen identified only as "Iserdo," was arrested by Slovenian police last week and was released after bail post.

The Mariposa Botnet was built with a computer virus known as “Butterfly Bot” and was used to steal passwords for websites and financial institutions. It stole computer users’ credit card and bank account information, launched denial of service attacks, and spread viruses. Industry experts estimated the Mariposa Botnet may have infected as many as 8 million to 12 million computers.

In February, the Spanish Guardia Civil arrested three suspected Mariposa Botnet operators: “Netkairo,” “Jonyloleante,” and “Ostiator,” aka Florencio Carro Ruiz, Jonathan Pazos Rivera, and Juan Jose Bellido Rios. These individuals are being prosecuted in Spain for computer crimes.

The Mariposa Botnet, named after the Spanish word for butterfly, was first detected in May 2009 by Defence Intelligence which then alerted the FBI and was shut down in December in a joint operation carried out by the Spanish police, the FBI and two private information security firms, Canada's Defence Intelligence and Spain's Panda Security.

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