Microsoft Names Two Alleged Zeus Botnet Operators

Three months after initially disrupting the Zeus botnet, Microsoft officials have named two of the people who they think are behind the malware network, a pair of Ukrainians who already are sitting in jail in the UK. From the beginning of the anti-Zeus operation, which became public in March,...

Microsoft Takes Down Kelihos Botnet

Continuing its legal assault on botnet operators and the hosting companies that the criminals use for their activities, Microsoft has announced new actions against a group of people it contends are responsible for the operation of the Kelihos botnet. The company has also helped to take down the...

Malicious Spam Spikes to 'Epic' Level

There has been a huge spike in spam volume in the last few days, including a massive amount of malicious spam with infected attachments, and researchers say that levels of junk mail are now far higher than they were before the takedown of the notorious Spamit affiliate program last fall. Research...

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...

Microsoft offers $250,000 reward for information of Rustock Botnet

Microsoft offers $250,000 reward for information of Rustock Botnet Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for providing information of Rustock botnet. The Rustock botnet is responsible for a great deal of cyber crime, spam the botnet has capacity for 30 billion spam mails every day, dodgy...

Microsoft offers $250,000 reward for information of Rustock Botnet

Microsoft offers $250,000 reward for information of Rustock Botnet Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for providing information of Rustock botnet. The Rustock botnet is responsible for a great deal of cyber crime, spam the botnet has capacity for 30 billion spam mails every day, dodgy...

Microsoft Offers $250k Reward for Rustock Information

Microsoft is now offering a $250,000 reward to help track down the people behind the notorious Rustock botnet. The company, which helped take down the botnet several months ago, said that it already has some good information on the crew behind the network and is now looking for information to bri...

Microsoft Says Rustock Botnet Cut in Half

In March, Microsoft announced that its Digital Crimes Unit had scored a major victory in the war against hackers with the takedown of the Rustock botnet. Since then, the company has continued to monitor the activity of the network and the machines infected with the Rustock-related malware and fou...

Rustock Author May Be Former Google Hopeful

As Microsoft’s crusade against the Rustock botnet continues, a new article from Brian Krebs claims the formerly prolific botnet’s author may be a self-described mathematician and software engineer who once sought employment from Google. According to Krebs, who cites court documents filed by the...

Report: For Hackers, Is Android The New Windows?

Mobile malware is on track to double again in 2011, as it has every year since 2007, according to a report from Kaspersky Lab. The doubling of malicious programs for mobile devices continues a trend first spotted in 2007 and that is beginning to resemble the world of PC viruses more each day, wit...

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 ...

Mitigating and Taking Down Botnets

Researchers and law enforcement officials have been working on taking down and crippling various botnets such as Rustock, Storm, Conficker and others for years. It’s a complex problem, and in this video Ryan Naraine talks with Kaspersky Lab malware researcher Tillmann Werner about the Conficker...

Rustock: March, 2011

By the time U.S. Marshals, in the company of Microsoft Corp. attorneys, busted into the data centers of dozens of U.S. hosting firms to shut down the Rustock botnet in March, 2011, it was the main source of global spam. The takedown was notable for the success Microsoft had in using the courts to...

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...

Spam Down 40 Percent in Rustock's Absence

The takedown of the Rustock botnet has measurably reduced the amount of spam e-mail, according to an IBM Internet Security Systems report. IBM said it has observed a sustained drop off of between 35% and 40% in global spam levels almost a week after law enforcement in the U.S. and abroad, along...

Reports: Rustock Born in the USA

U.S. hosting firms accounted for the bulk of the command and control centers for the Rustock botnet, with many firms claiming that they had no idea they were harboring an illegal criminal network on their infrastructure, according to a story in Krebsonsecurity.com. Threatpost reported last week...

Lessons From the Rustock Takedown

As a follow-up to the Rustock botnet news, Microsoft have identified themselves as the key instigators of the takedown. This is the second time Microsoft’s legal team has been actively involved in combating the botnet menace – and they obviously learned from their previous attempt at trying to...

Threatpost News Roundup on ITEC This Week

It was a big week in security, what with the takedown of the Rustock botnet takedown, there was a major attack against security firm RSA Security. Threatpost Editor Paul Roberts had a chance to sit down with Bill Sell, host of the weekly IT security news show ITEC This Week on the Pulse Network...

Alex Lanstein on the Rustock Botnet Takedown

Dennis Fisher talks with Alex Lanstein of FireEye about this week’s takedown of the Rustock botnet, the important legal precedent it helped set with Microsoft’s lawsuit and the mechanics behind the operation and dismantling of large-scale botnets. Podcast audio courtesy of sykboy65 Subscribe to t...

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...