26 July 2017 - Chinese police arrest 11 Rafotech employees

Rafotech
Source - http://www.govinfosecurity.com/chinese-police-arrest-11-over-fireball-adware-a-10148?rf=2017-07-27_ENEWS_SUB_GIS_Slot1&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpaaU5tTXpNemc1TmpoaiIsInQiOiJlMlBFcTBtVGZJajBFUjdzVUhBSkU5K3Q4YkZwOUt4OEgwUXhaU0oxZlJ4MkpSeG1mMlZIV2JoMjUyd3pablJhSEE3
Where - China
Business line - Social Media and the Internet

Eleven people in Beijing have been arrested over allegations they distributed malicious adware across the globe.

According to reports, all of the people arrested are employed by Beijing-based digital marketing firm, Rafotech, including the company's president, technical director and operations director.

In June this year, Israeli security consultancy Check Point publicly accused the firm of a practise known as click fraud by installing browser-hijacking malware on its users' systems, which Check Point claims could “drive victims to malicious sites, spy on them and conduct successful malware dropping.”

The malicious adware Rafotech is accused of distributing is known as ‘Fireball’ and is designed to allow hackers to completely take over control of any system it is installed on.

The adware was allegedly distributed via what Check Point refers to as Rafotech's “fake search engines.”

“Although Rafotech doesn't admit it produces browser-hijackers and fake search engines, it does – proudly – declare itself a successful marketing agency, reaching 300 million users worldwide – coincidentally similar to our number of estimated infections,” the security firm added, in its damning blog post.

Rafotech has not yet commented on the arrests nor the accusations made by Check Point. The arrests are understood to have happened in June around the time Check Point published its blog post, but have only recently been made public. The firm's website has been inactive since June.