Microsoft, FireEye Take Down Notorious Rustock Botnet

Being a botnet operator has traditionally been a fairly reliable and easy way to make money. But it’s starting to become a slightly dicier occupation these days, as evidenced by the news of the takedown of the venerable and virulent Rustock botnet by researchers at Microsoft and FireEye. Rustock...

Analysis Shows DroidDream Trojan Designed for Future Monetization

A detailed analysis of the DroidDream Trojan that was found in dozens of apps in the Android Market this week shows that the malware has a modular construction that likely was designed to give attackers the ability to monetize infected devices through installations of adware or spyware. The Troja...

Darkshell Botnets Targeting Chinese Manufacturers With DDoS Attacks

Researchers are tracking a new bot that originated in China and is being used by various associated botnets that are hammering away with DDoS attacks aimed at several dozen targets around the world, including a number of telecom companies and specialized manufacturers. The piece of malware behind...

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...

Stuxnet Authors Made Several Basic Errors

ARLINGTON, VA–There is a growing sentiment among security researchers that the programmers behind the Stuxnet attack may not have been the super-elite cadre of developers that they’ve been mythologized to be in the media. In fact, some experts say that Stuxnet could well have been far more...

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...

'SMS of Death' Attacks Can Crash the Simplest of Phones

Malicious text messages can crash many types of mobile phones, including devices by Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG, according to a presentation given at the Chaos Communication Congress hacking conference this week in Berlin. Nicknamed ‘SMS of Death,’ the attacks were outlined by Collin...

Researchers Tracking Emerging Darkness Botnet

Researchers are tracking a new botnet that has become one of the more active DDoS networks on the Internet since its emergence early last month. The botnet, dubbed “Darkness,” is being controlled by several domains hosted in Russia and its operators are boasting that it can take down large sites...

Bredolab Botnet Crackdown Could Have Wide Impact

A Dutch cyber crime unit has disrupted the operation of the Bredolab botnet and arrested an Armenian man believed to be the operator of the global malware distribution hub. In a statement on Monday, the Dutch Public Ministry said that the country’s High Tech Crime Team THTC, working in cooperatio...

New Malware Murofet Following Conficker's Lead

It’s been a blissful few months since Conficker last reared its over-hyped head, but now there’s a new piece of malware that is adopting some of the tactics that Conficker used. The malware, known as Murofet, is using Conficker’s technique of generating thousands of new domains for updates every...

Some Pushdo Variants Resuming Spam Operations

A few days after the majority of the command-and-control servers belonging to one of the variants of the Pushdo botnet were taken offline, some researchers say that there are indications that portions of the botnet are back to their old tricks, downloading new spam templates for a resumption of...

100K PC-Strong Zeus Botnet Disrupted

Security researchers have uncovered the command and control network of a Zeus 2 botnet sub-system targeted at UK surfers that controlled an estimated 100,000 computers. Read the full article. The Register...

Attackers Moving to Social Networks For Command and Control

Bot herders and the crimeware gangs behind banker Trojans have had a lot of success in the last few years with using bulletproof hosting providers as their main base of operations. But more and more, they’re finding that social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are offering even more fertile...

New, Simple Twitter Botnet Tool Debuts

There is a new point-and-click tool circulating online that enables virtually anyone to create a piece of malware that will connect a PC to a budding Twitter botnet. The tool, known as TwitterNET Builder, is being used by attackers to build quick and easy botnets that are then controlled through...

Waledac Botnet Now Completely Crippled, Experts Say

After Microsoft’s actions to take down the Waledac botnet last month, there was some question about whether the operation was much more than a grab for headlines that would have little effect on actual spam levels or malware infections. But more than three weeks after the takedown, researchers sa...

To Catch a Botnet: How Mariposa Was Busted

More details follow the news of the Spanish botnet Mariposa and its owners being caught. The Mariposa Working Group infiltrated the command-and-control structure of Mariposa to monitor the communication channels that relayed information from compromised systems back to the hackers who run the...

Behind the Scenes of the Botnet Epidemic

2009 saw many, many new botnet outbreaks and advancements in their criminal management. Throughout the year Damballa tracked thousands of distinct criminal operated botnets and identified millions of newly compromised enterprise systems each day. This week I’m going to share some of our findings...

Researchers Discover New ACH Banker Trojan

Malware hunters at SecureWorks have intercepted a new banker Trojan being used by cyber-criminals to steal financial credentials from banks in the U.S. The Trojan, dubbed “Bugat,” targets Automated Clearing House ACH and wire transfer transactions by small- and mid-sized business in the U.S., muc...

Infiltrating the Pushdo Botnet

It’s very rare that we researchers get a chance to explore the inner workings of a botnet command and control server. Detailed insight into the botnet server or command component can give us valuable information about the motives of the botnet and possibly the bad guys behind it. But granting...

iPhone Worm Was Simple, Yet Effective, Analysis Shows

The iKee worm that was infecting jailbroken iPhones last month was a simple, yet effective, piece of software that shows how easy it might be for an attacker to create a fairly large, functioning botnet comprising mobile devices, an analysis of the worm shows. Researchers at SRI International’s...