Overview
- Police arrested and charged Louis Michael Gaebler and Ruben Ian Thomson after a multi-agency probe that involved the Australian Federal Police, Western Australia police and the US FBI.
- Investigators say the suspects are accused of inserting malicious code into widely used open-source development tools so that routine software updates installed malware into developer environments.
- Authorities allege the campaign reached over 1,000 organisations and harvested more than 500,000 user credentials, with remediation costs estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
- The arrests on Wednesday followed raids on properties in Cottesloe, Hamilton Hill and Mandurah where electronic devices were seized; Gaebler was remanded and Thomson’s lawyer signalled a possible bail application.
- Police say the suspects received cryptocurrency payments for their roles and that the probe continues as investigators trace funds, assess the full scale of the compromises and consider further arrests.