Botnets

Accused Kelihos spam botmaster: It wasn't me, Microsoft

January 30, 2012

A Russian computer programmer has denied allegations by Microsoft that he was responsible for manning a prolific spam botnet.
 

Microsoft names Russian man in Kelihos botnet suit

January 24, 2012

Microsoft believes it has found the person responsible for the spam-pushing Kelihos botnet, according to a new lawsuit.
 

U.S, Asian nations dominate spam-sender list

November 02, 2011

The United States has maintained the dubious distinction of being the world's No. 1 relayer of spam, but Asian countries are catching up quickly.
 

Feedback due on gov't proposal around botnet notification

November 01, 2011

Friday is the deadline for public comments regarding a government proposal to create a model by which internet service providers voluntarily alert consumers if their computers are part of a botnet.
 

Two minutes on: Are ISPs obliged to squash botnets?

November 01, 2011

Is it an ISP's responsibility to combat botnets, asks SC Magazine Executive Editor Dan Kaplan.
 

Microsoft drops botnet suit, asks former defendant for help

October 26, 2011

Microsoft has dropped a complaint against a Czech Republic man and his company in relation to their alleged involvement in controlling a recently dismantled botnet.
 

Microsoft disrupts Kelihos botnet, names alleged mastermind

September 27, 2011

The Kelihos botnet, made up of approximately 41,000 infected computers worldwide, was capable of sending 3.8 billion spam emails per day.
 

DHS, Commerce pushing for voluntary botnet notification

September 23, 2011

The U.S. Commerce and Homeland Security departments are seeking public feedback on a recommended program by which internet service providers would "voluntarily and timely detect and notify end-users that their machines have been infected," a move designed help eradicate botnets. According to a notice posted this week in the Federal Register, the agencies are weighing how such an approach would be implemented, for example, incentives may be offered to service providers that participate, and who would be responsible for running the program - industry, the public sector or a partnership between both. Public comments, which must be received by Nov. 4, are expected to examine a number of areas, including the privacy implications of such an approach.
 

Android botnet infections on the uptick

September 09, 2011

Mobile botnets are nowhere near as big as PC zombie networks, but the threat is growing, according to a new report from Damballa.
 

Morto using DNS for command-and-control

August 31, 2011

A Windows worm known as Morto uses a unique way for infected machines to phone home for instructions.
 

McAfee fires back at Shady RAT criticism

August 22, 2011

McAfee has fired back at critics of its report on Operation Shady RAT, and said the CEO of rival anti-virus maker Kaspersky Lab, who called the report "alarmist," missed the whole point of the expose.
 

Microsoft offers $250K reward to find Rustock masterminds

July 18, 2011

Redmond remains steadfast in its effort to imprison those responsible for one of history's largest botnets.
 

After a botnet falls, infected PCs drop by more than half

July 05, 2011

More than half of Rustock-infected machines have been cleaned since Microsoft led a joint effort earlier this year to shut down the prolific botnet.
 

New "indestructible" botnet comprised of 4.5 million PCs

July 01, 2011

A new botnet made up of more than 4.5 million infected computers is "practically indestructible," according to researchers at Kaspersky Lab. But some disagree.
 

Debate: The U.S. government was justified to take control of Coreflood bot servers.

June 01, 2011

The U.S. government was justified to take control of Coreflood bot servers.
 

Rustock and Coreflood: a call to arms for strategic offensive action

David LaMacchia and Jamie Tomasello, Cloudmark; Jon Praed, founding partner, Internet Law Group May 19, 2011

Two recent botnet takedowns have demonstrated why going on the offensive is a viable way to cleanse compromised computers. But such tactics may set questionable precedents.
 

Security education: We're doing it wrong

Lysa Myers, director of research, West Coast Labs April 21, 2011

Most PC owners are thinking about security protection from a pre-botnet perspective.
 

Man sentenced for using botnet against media sites

April 20, 2011

A Kansas City man has been sentenced to two years in prison after he was found guilty in September of creating a virus and amassing a 100,000-node botnet to launch DDoS attacks against a number of websites, including Rolling Stone and Radar. Bruce Raisley, 48, launched the attacks against sites that published articles detailing an incident in which he agreed to leave his wife for a "woman" whom he met on the internet, according to prosecutors. As it turned out, his newfound lover actually was Xavier Von Erck, head of Perverted Justice, an anti-pedophile vigilante group, who hatched the cruel joke to avenge for Raisley publicly slamming and threatening the organization after he stopped volunteering there. Raisley, who was sentenced last week, also must pay more than $90,000 in fines and serve three years of supervised release following his term.
 

Coreflood-style takedowns may lead to trouble

April 15, 2011

A new strategy used by the U.S. government to disassemble the notorious Coreflood bonet has some wondering whether a poor precedent was set.
 

DoJ, FBI disable massive Coreflood botnet

April 13, 2011

Federal authorities have taken over the control hub of the prolific Coreflood botnet and filed a civil complaint against 13 unnamed defendants.
 

Attack toolkits to pose bigger problem for businesses

April 05, 2011

Attack toolkits have been refined to the point where they are producing high success rates for their criminal users.
 

Poachers and gamekeepers

David Harley, ESET senior research fellow March 22, 2011

Anti-virus companies and active malware research: a conflict of interest?
 

Texas ringleader of pump-and-dump scam arrested

March 22, 2011

Federal agents arrested the alleged ringleader of an international securities fraud racket that used hackers, botnet operators and email spam to drive up the value of stocks.
 

Microsoft prevails, Rustock botnet shut down

March 18, 2011

In a widescale operation involving Microsoft, industry partners, academics and law enforcement agencies, the Rustock botnet was shut down on Thursday.
 

Analysis finds little movement in "spambot ecosystem"

February 16, 2011

The days of massive - and new - spambots may be over for now, but that doesn't mean the fight against unwanted mail is, according to research released Wednesday by Dell SecureWorks.
 

Waledac botnet operators amass 500,000 email credentials

February 02, 2011

After being effectively knocked out, the Waledac botnet has been rebuilt from scratch - and is on the attack again.
 

Spam, after a holiday hiatus, returns in earnest

January 10, 2011

The Rustock botnet, dubbed the biggest source of global spam, has resumed activity after a two-week break, according to security researchers at Symantec.
 

New Year's-themed bogus emails work of Storm or Waledac

January 03, 2011

Researchers at the nonprofit Shadowserver Foundation believe they have identified a new version of either the Storm or Waledac worm, thanks to a large-scale influx of New Year's-themed spam. The emails purport to be a New Year's greeting card but contain a link to a malicious domain, claiming to host a fake Flash Player that actually is an exploit. The evil domains use fast-flux techniques to hide the host server. "The whole point of this botnet is to install malware onto systems of unsuspected visitors," researcher Steven Adair wrote on the Shadowserver blog. Storm first appeared on the scene in 2007, capitalizing on current events and holidays, and was effectively replaced by Waledac in 2009. - DK
 

"Iranian Cyber Army" cons fellow crooks with honeypot

November 04, 2010

Security researchers have discovered that a criminal ring trying to spread the Zeus trojan has set up a fake administrator panel to study its foes and produce bogus data.
 

Botnet sending Bredolab trojan dismantled; one arrested

October 26, 2010

Dutch authorities said Monday that a 27-year-old Armenian man has been charged as being the mastermind behind the Bredolab botnet, a network of millions of compromised computers worldwide.