Peer-to-Peer Botnet Takedowns a Challenge

The FBI, Justice Department and technology companies have had success shutting down botnets that rely on a centralized infrastructure and command and control servers to communicate with bots, steal data or send malicious commands. Peer-to-peer botnets, however, have proven more difficult to take...

At Microsoft, a Sharp Focus on Cybercrime

REDMOND, Wash.–Cybercrime has developed in the last few years into a major concern, not just for the consumers and businesses that are victims, but also for governments around the world. Obama administration officials have called it one of the larger threats to the United States economy. While la...

Fraud-as-a-Service of Zeus Malware advertised on social network

Cyber crime enterprise is showing a growing interest in monetization of botnets, the most targeted sector in recent months is banking. One of most active malware that still menaces Banking sector is the popular Zeus. Zeus is one of the oldest, it is active since 2007, and most prolific malware th...

Fraud-as-a-Service of Zeus Malware advertised on social network

Cyber crime enterprise is showing a growing interest in monetization of botnets, the most targeted sector in recent months is banking. One of most active malware that still menaces Banking sector is the popular Zeus. Zeus is one of the oldest, it is active since 2007, and most prolific malware th...

Anonymous #OpIsrael, cyber crime and assumptions on state-sponsored interference

Last April 7th the Anonymous collective hit the Israeli networks with a huge as historic offensive, for the first time an independent group of hackers declared war to a Governments to protest against its policy. Many web sites of the country were hit by DDoS attacks, the data on the event reporte...

Malware that turns computers into Bitcoin miners

Researchers from Kaspersky Lab have discovered a new spam message campaign being transmitted via Skype contains malware capable of using an infected computer to mine for Bitcoins. The malware, identified as Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt. Bitcoin is a non-governmental, fully-digital currency based...

Bamital botnet servers seized by Microsoft and Symantec

Microsoft teamed up with Symantec to take down a nasty malware affecting thousands upon thousands of PCs. Bamital botnet hijacked people's search experiences and redirected victims to potentially dangerous sites that could leave them vulnerable to other online threats and steal their personal...

Bots, Zeus, Web Exploits: the Most Potent Threats of 2012

Every year it seems that security-related news advances further from its roots in national security circles, IT departments, and the antivirus industry into the mainstream consciousness. From July to the end of year was no exception. However, despite a handful of flashy security stories, F-Secure...

Three Charged with Creating, Distributing Gozi Banking Malware

Charges will be brought today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against three men allegedly involved with creating and distributing the Gozi banking Trojan. Gozi infected more than a million computers worldwide, including a handful at NASA, leading to tens of millio...

Spammers Using Fake YouTube Notifications to Peddle Drugs

Spammers are attempting to deceive unsuspecting users into clicking on fake YouTube links that lead to a counterfeit drug website, according to a report yesterday from security firm Webroot. Dancho Danchev writes that pharmaceutical scammers are circulating emails that mimic legitimate Youtube...

Report Contends 'Project Blitzkrieg' Threat Credible

Earlier reports of a planned, sophisticated attack on 30 U.S. banks to siphon millions from fake wire transfers have been vetted by McAfee Labs in a just-released report. Speculation about the authenticity of the planned attack, dubbed Project Blitzkrieg, on large U.S. financial institutions...

Mobile Malware Is Up – Way Up – in McAfee Q2 Threat Report

McAfee Labs researchers today announced a surge in malware samples this year – particularly threats that take advantage of mobile networks to launch drive-by downloads, control botnets using Twitter and spread ransomware that locks down infected machines and demand payments from users. The Santa...

Gamecock Data Breach Affects 34,000

A more than three-month old intrusion into networks at the University of South Carolina may have compromised the personal information of some 34,000 individuals associated with the school’s College of Education. The breach might have exposed names, addresses, and social security numbers of...

BOTNET - The Hacker News Magazine August 2012 Edition Released

Hello faithful readers and new comers to our magazine! We are very sorry to have missed publishing the July issue, however, we were busy at work putting on the THE HACKERS CONFERENCE in Delhi, India. We had a fantastic turn out and professional, informative speakers. We plan to have another...

Researchers Find Flaw in Dirt Jumper Bot

A team of researchers has discovered a weakness in the command-and-control infrastructure of one of the major DDoS toolkits, Dirt Jumper, that enables them to stop attacks that are in progress. The discovery gives the researchers the ability to access the back-end servers that control the attack...

Dutch Authorities Knock Out Grum Botnet C&C Servers

Dutch authorities have knocked out two of the command-and-control servers for one of the top spam-producing botnets, known as Grum. The action was not a complete knockout though, as there are still two other C&C servers at work, but researchers are optimistic that the volume of spam will drop as ...

BlackHole Exploit Kit Gets New Domain-Generation Algorithm

Nothing is more frustrating than spending days or weeks compromising dozens of Web sites and setting up your network of malicious redirects and then finding out that someone has screwed it all up by taking down one of your infected sites. Luckily, the crew behind the BlackHole exploit kit has...

The Hidden Security Risks of P2P Traffic

For years enterprises have been trying to control peer-to-peer P2P technologies inside their networks, and for good reason. The efficiency with which P2P technology move large files have made P2P networks key enablers of the Internet grey market by acting as the distribution mechanism of choice f...

Call for Articles - July Edition | The Hacker News Monthly Magazine

Call for Articles - July Edition | The Hacker News Monthly Magazine Attention Readers!! We know there is a writer in all of you and we invite you to submit your best work on the subject of BOTNETS for our July The Hacker News Monthly Magazine. Give us all your expertise and knowledge on the subje...

Adele Bests Adderall As Affiliate Spammers Offer Music Downloads

Cyber criminals long ago discovered that there’s a big market for pharmaceuticals online, prompting a tsunami of pharmaceutical spam offering everything from “herbal Viagra” to Prozac and Adderall. But new data from security firm Webroot suggests that scammers are experimenting with new products,...