Harnig Botnet Returns, But Without Rustock

The takedown of the Rustock botnet earlier this year has had ripple effects throughout the malware and spam ecosystems, with some large reductions in spam levels and attacks. However, some of the components of the malware machine driven by Rustock are beginning to come back online now. Researcher...

Study: Operation Shady Rat Revealed

Global 2000 companies can be split into two categories, according to the author of a new white paper from McAfee PDF; those that know they’ve been compromised and those that don’t yet know. “The only organizations that are exempt from this threat,” writes the paper’s author, Dmitri Alperovitch,...

GAO: The DoD's Plan To Unify Cyber Defenses Looks Like Swiss Cheese

A new report out from the Government Accountability Office GAO warns that the U.S. Department of Defense’s efforts to unify its cyber security operations has serious gaps and that the Department is “unprepared to meet the current threat” of cyber attack. The report, issued on Monday, is an...

TDSS rootkit infects 1.5 million US computers

TDSS rootkit infects 1.5 million US computers Millions of PCs around the world infected by the dangerous TDSS 'super-malware' rootkit as part of a campaign to build a giant new botnet. The report is presented by researchers from security firm Kaspersky Lab. TDSS also known as 'TDL' and sometimes ...

FBI Begins Purging Coreflood Infected PCs

The FBI has issued some 19,000 uninstall commands to the computers of 24 individuals infected by the Coreflood botnet, effectively purging their machines of that malware, and leaving behind no unintended consequences thus far according to a report from Brian Krebs. This move was made possible by...

Coreflood Takedown Raises Questions About Offensive Actions Against Botnets

For just about as long as there have been botnets, there’s been an ongoing discussion in the security and law-enforcement communities about the legality and ethics of taking proactive steps to disrupt the botnets’ operations and even to remove the bots from infected machines. Until very recently,...

FBI cracks International Bot Network !

FBI cracks International Bot Network ! The Department of Justice and FBI declared that it has cracked a network of hackers, who have infected almost 2 million computers with a harmful "bot" program, Coreflood that steals private and monetary data from computers. Identified as a "bot" network- as...

Report Describes Far-Flung Chinese Cyber Espionage Against U.S. Government

The massive campaign of cyber intrusions of U.S. government Web sites by China’s People’s Liberation Army PLA now has a name: “Byzantine Hades,” according to a report Thursday by Reuters. The report says that China has gained the upper hand over the U.S. in the arena of cyberwarfare, developing a...

DOJ Shuts Down Botnet, Disables Infected Systems

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI said on Wednesday that they had taken actions to disable an international botnet of more than two million infected computers that was stealing corporate data including user names, passwords and financial information. Thirteen unnamed “John Doe” defendent...

RawCap sniffer for Windows released !

RawCap sniffer for Windows released We are today proude to announce the release of RawCap, which is a free raw sockets sniffer for Windows. Here are some highlights of why RawCap is a great tool to have in your toolset: Can sniff any interface that has got an IP address, including 127.0.0.1...

Microsoft Builds Legal Weapon to Take Apart Botnets

The take-down of the Rustock botnet in March gave Microsoft another head for its mantle: two in just the last year. That’s an impressive take for any private firm, and one of a string of actions against bot networks in recent years. But security experts say that the company’s success in building ...

Report: Rustock Operators or Operator

A Krebsonsecurity piece looks into the unknown party behind the Rustock botnet, and whether it may have been operated by just one person. By interviewing investigators involved in the takedown, a joint operation carried out by Microsoft, FireEye, and various law enforcement agencies, Krebs...

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...