Methods For Measuring Botnet Threat Woefully Inadequate

Current methods for measuring the size of botnets are flawed and may be hampering efforts to fight back against the networks of zombie computers, according to a new report from The European Network and Information Security Agency ENISA. The agency issued a 150 page report, “Botnets: Measurement,...

Trojan & Botnet Activities Increased in February-March !

Trojans were the most prolific malware threat in February-March, and collaboration seems to be the name of the game in malware development and distribution. Trojan-based attacks continue to be the biggest malware threat in February, but PDF exploits aren't far behind, according to several securit...

Launching AnonLeaks, Ready To Dump More HBGary E-mails !

Anonymous used to be all about disrupting the Web sites of companies that helped block WikiLeaks' funding. Now it's starting to act like WikiLeaks itself. The group is planning, as early as today, to release 27,000 e-mails from the server of Greg Hoglund, the chief executive of software security...

Malware Exploding, Especially On Mobile Devices !

Mobile malware is growing, and Adobe is the main vector of attack, according to new figures from security firm McAfee, which were published on Tuesday. Cybercriminals are adopting strategies to benefit from a more mobile device users in the report, McAfee Threat Report: Fourth Quarter 2010...

Donbot Botnet Exploiting Bank of America Customers

A phishing campaign via the Donbot botnet has been spamming unsuspecting Bank of America customers, according to a blog post by Rodel Mendrez at M86 Security Labs. Online banking customers who’ve been targeted receive an e-mail that appears to be from Bank of America instructing the user to confi...

Research Reveals Huge Cache of FTP, Email Credentials Stolen by Waledac

Researchers have discovered that the gang behind the once-and-future botnet Waledac has gathered nearly 500,000 stolen passwords for email accounts, along with close to 125,000 sets of pilfered credentials for FTP accounts. The discovery isn’t so surprising in its details, but rather in its scope...

Why Takedowns Don't Reduce Online Crime

The last year has seen a string of takedowns of botnet command-and-control servers, malware drop zones, spam operations and other pieces of the crimeware infrastructure, each of which made a dent in one way or another. But the question of whether the takedowns have had any lasting effect on the...

Top Crimeware Hosting Provider Taken Offline

VolgaHost, a hosting provider notorious in the security community for hosting botnet command-and-control servers and other services related to online crime has been taken offline, and a number of servers involved in the Zeus crimeware operation are offline, as a result. The hosting provider, whic...

Conficker Working Group: Efforts To Fight Botnet A Mixed Bag

A new report from the Conficker Working Group concludes that coordinated efforts to stomp out the botnet were a mixed bag: helping to thwart the worm’s efforts to register Web domains that it used to spread, but failing to remove the worm from infected Windows computers. The report released this...

Week in Security: Stuxnet Revelations and Black Hat Happenings

Stuxnet chat saturated the news this week after the New York Times got the cyber security echo chamber going with a story delving into the mysterious worm. But Stuxnet was hardly the only news this week, which also saw new research from the Black Hat Briefings conference in Washington D.C. and...

Where To Buy Your Tools From Hackers ?

Software that facilitates the attack by beginners online scammers and the future is big business anarchists, says Karlin Lillington The suites are equipped with new software with all the trappings of modern software now offers: cloud computing hosting, software as a service SaaS functions,...

Zeus Targeting Online Payment Services

The Zeus Botnet continues to evolve and shift in focus from its traditional targets, banks and their customers, to other money-handling institutions like electronic money and online payment systems, according to a new report. The shift has been going on for months and likely follows policy moves ...

Week in Security: Chinese SCADA Miscommunication and Botnets 2011: The Return

The specter of Stuxnet reared its head again this week, with news of a critical hole in some Chinese SCADA software, while, elsewhere, botnets reloaded following a holiday break, and patches from Microsoft, Google and RIM made headlines. Read on for the full week in review. At the top of the news...

Be aware : Korean DDoS arrests !

The Korean Times reports the arrest of a pair of hackers over the weekend on DDoS charges. According to prosecutors, the pair, Lee and Park, operated a gambling website on behalf of a crime gang. In an effort to boost traffic to their own site, they used a 50,000-strong botnet to overload 109 riv...

After A Lull, Botnets Back In Business

After a lull in the fourth quarter of 2010, spam appears to be back in full force, according to reports from both Websense, Commtouch and Symantec Corp.Spam volume was up 45% in the first half of January after diving in Q4 according to a Commtouch spam report. Reports show the recently dormant...

Microsoft botnet take down will not stop spam !

A prominent security researcher said he doubts Microsoft's take down of the Waledac botnet would have any impact on spam levels, as the company claimed. "Waledac just is not a hugely prolific spammer," said Joe Stewart, director of malware analysis at SecureWorks and a noted botnet researcher. "S...

Spam Volume Recovers After Holiday Break

The amount of spam hitting users’ inboxes fell off a cliff in late December, with many security experts attributing the decline to the sudden disappearance of the Rustock botnet and other networks from the spam business. But the level of spam has begun to gain back some of the ground it lost toda...

New Service Helps Attackers Get Zeus Botnet Off the Ground

The inventiveness and avarice of the underground community knows few bounds and one of the latest bits of evidence of this is the creation of a new service designed to help newbies get their Zeus botnets up and running as quickly as possible. The service takes one of the more bothersome tasks...

Week in Security: Year-end E-Card Drama, Foreign Spies and Sandboxes – Not So Safe After All?

An onslaught of spammy holiday cards ushered out a 2010 that saw spam, for the first time ever, in decline. Meanwhile, the DoD warned about foreign governments stealing military technology, while researchers warned that application sandboxes might not be so safe to play in, after all. Read on for...

White House E-Card Scam Part of Larger Zeus-Related Attack !

The simplistic spam campaign that hit around Christmas and purported to be a holiday greeting from the White House not only included a piece of Zeus-related malware that searches hard drives for documents and uploads them to a remote server, but also appears to be connected to a similar attack fr...