VB Migration

Tag: botnet

  • Mariposa bot herders apply for job with security firm

    Applicants weren’t successful, but may not see prison either. Panda Labs ‘ Luis Corrons believed he was the victim if a practical joke when two people who had been involved in the running of the Mariposa botnet applied for a job at his company. It wasn’t a joke though: the two Spaniards who visited the…

  • Botnet taken down as ringleaders are arrested

    ‘Mariposa’ included almost 13 million zombies. Spanish authorities have managed to take down the Mariposa botnet – one of the largest of its kind which is believed to have infected in 12.7 million computers worldwide – as well as arresting three of its botherders. Stories of botnets being taken down have become more prevalent recently;…

  • Botnets becoming more robust

    Zeus botnet used Amazon’s in-the-cloud service to control bots. New reports by MessageLabs and McAfee show that botherders have learned a lesson following the take-down of McColo in November last year . McColo was a rogue ISP that was taken down after security researchers gathered evidence of suspicious activities on the provider’s network, with the…

  • Take-down of rogue ISP sees temporary drop in spam levels

    Spam levels back to normal within a few days. The take-down of the rogue ISP Real Host on 1 August saw spam levels temporarily drop by more than a third, Messagelabs claims in its monthly Intelligence Report. The provider, based in Riga, Latvia, was linked with various kinds of malicious activity. In particular, it is…

  • McColo shutdown not felt the same by all recipients

    Mailbox-level reduction may depend on spam detection methods. When the rogue provider McColo was taken offline in November 2008, depriving many botnets of their command and control systems, global spam levels were reported to have dropped by as much as 60%. However, new research shows that this drop was not experienced as such by all…

  • Yxe trojan infecting mobile phones

    Symbian software-signing slipup certifies SMS spambot. A new trojan, the first of its kind, is affecting users of the Symbian mobile operating system by spreading itself via text messages sent to all numbers in the phone’s address book. These messages contain a link, clicking on which will attempt to install an application Sexy Space ,…

  • Five botnets responsible for 75% of spam sent

    Each infected machine sends spam at rate of almost two messages per second. Spam levels have increased 60% since the beginning of this year, according to security company Marshal8e6 in its latest Security Threats report. The increase means that spam levels are now back at where they were mid-2008, prior to the closure of the…

  • Korea DDoS surge mired in hype and confusion

    Rows rumble on over sources and targets of botnet attacks. Last week’s gush of denial-of-service attacks has sparked considerable excitement and argument, with rumours of possible links to North Korean aggression leading to frenzied hype and ill-founded suggestions of the outbreak of cyberwar. The attacks targeted a range of servers, notably government and news websites…

  • BBC botnet hijack proves controversial

    Legal issues raised by broadcaster’s demo of spamming, DDoS, cleanup attempt. A BBC report into the dangers of botnets has got the corporation into hot water, after reporters took control of a cluster of hijacked systems, used them to demonstrate the ability to send spam and launch denial of service attacks, and then adjusted infected…

  • MS forms anti-Conficker alliance

    Industry group to combine efforts, reward offered. Microsoft has announced a collaborative effort to combat the Conficker (aka Downadup) botnet, the widespread infection making headlines over the past few weeks. In addition, Microsoft is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the botnet’s creators. The partnership includes web management groups such as…