Team Cymru has been monitoring the criminal organization's activity

Feb 28, 2013 15:58 GMT  ·  By
Heatmap detailing African and Asian malware infections for one day in February 2013
   Heatmap detailing African and Asian malware infections for one day in February 2013

Security firm Team Cymru has identified a cybercriminal organization that’s capable of stealing 1 TB of intellectual property each day from targeted organizations.

The main targets appear to be government agencies from Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Academic and military institutions, an embassy and even a major search engine have also been targeted.

Based on the company’s research, around 30,000 systems had data stolen over a period of a few years. The cybercriminals use around 500 command and control servers, each being capable of communicating with 20 victims at a time.

Each of these severs is capable of extracting around 2.4 GB of information per day, amounting to 1 TB of data stolen per day, and 365 TB in a year.

The company hasn’t provided many details about the attacker, but Team Cymru Director Steve Santorelli has told The Verge that judging by the vast quantity of data, it’s most likely the work of a state-sponsored group.