DDoS attack from Browser-based Botnets that lasted for 150 hours

Browser-based botnets are the T-1000s of the DDoS world. Just like the iconic villain of the old Judgment Day movie, they too are designed for adaptive infiltration. This is what makes them so dangerous. Where other more primitive bots would try to brute-force your defenses, these bots can simply...

Shylock/Caphaw Banking Malware Infections on the Rise

Two dozen major U.S. and European banks are in the crosshairs of the Shylock, or Caphaw, financial malware of late, and victims who trade with one of the 24 financial institutions are at risk of giving up their credentials and losing assets in their accounts. Malware researchers have noticed a ri...

Call for Ban on Vulnerable PHP SuperGlobal Variables

The ease with which PHP applications can be subverted should be pretty apparent by now given the number of botnets supported by compromised sites hosting PHP code. The biggest culprit in the PHP universe may be a set of nine variables called SuperGlobals that provide programmers with development...

Microsoft: 88 Percent of Citadel Botnets Down

Nearly two months after the company was part of an operation to disrupt a large number of Citadel botnets, Microsoft said that 88 percent of the botnets spawned by that malware have been taken down. Citadel is a Trojan designed specifically to steal financial information from a variety of sources...

65 Sites Compromised in ZeroAccess Trojan Attacks

As many as 65 websites have been compromised in an attack that has snared another Washington, D.C.-area media website as well as a number of travel and leisure sites. While the sites aren’t topically related, they’re all hosting advertisements injected with malicious code hosted on...

Peer-to-Peer Botnets Grow Fivefold

The resiliency of peer-to-peer botnets is too good to pass up for fraudsters and spam mavens tired of watching expensive and centralized command and control infrastructures be taken down by authorities and technology companies. Botnets such as ZeroAccess, TDL4/TDSS and Zeus v3 have shown the way...

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...