Chinese Botnet Herders Offer ‘Commercial’ DDoS Services

Researchers have identified a new botnet based in China that was openly advertising DDoS-for-hire services and had managed to plant roots inside a number of major U.S. ISPs.

Damballa researchers discovered the botnet known as IMDDOD a few months ago when coming across suspect domains while investigating another incident. They traced the domains back to a single domain in China. The more they looked into the botnet, the more…

Mexican Twitter-Controlled Botnet Detected

Security researchers have discovered another botnet that uses Twitter as a command and control channel, The Register reports.

Malware-infected drones in the Mehika Twitter botnet take instructions from a Twitter account maintained by hackers instead of conventional command and control servers. The use of Twitter as a botnet command channel was first discovered in August 2009 before similar methods were used to abuse Facebook profiles as …

Virgin Media to Warn Users of Botnet Computers

Subscribers to Virgin Media who are running infected machines and are part of botnets can expect to be notified by the company, telling the user to increase their security, as part of a new initiative.

Virgin Media, which is the UK’s third-largest ISP, will look to match compromised IP addresses collected by the Shadowserver Foundation, and other researchers, to its client’s list, according to The Register. Any machine found to…

Botnet Conducts Brute Force Attacks

A server-based botnet that attacks unsecure websites is currently launching a flood of attacks over the Internet, according to security researchers.

The attacks are attempting to hack secure shells protecting Linux boxes, routers and other network devices by guessing the login credentials.

The botnet hits websites that run an outdated version of phpMyAdmin, according to researchers. The vulnerability, which was patched back in April, is exploited by the botnet…

Researchers Find Botnet Used to Steal Banking Information

Security researchers have discovered a botnet which appeared to control around 100,000 users in the United Kingdom. The cyber criminals running the botnet appear to be based in Eastern Europe and have been using the botnet to carry out financial fraud.

Researchers with Trusteer, a secure browsing service provider, discovered a Zeus version 2 botnet being used to collect banking login credentials, credit and debit card information, bank statements, account…

Botnet Infiltrated by Researchers

Security researchers have managed to infiltrate a botnet which had amassed around 60GB of stolen information. The command and control servers were in charge of some 55,000 zombie computers by the time researchers infiltrated the botnet, according to researchers with AVG.

The botnet appeared to be the work of a sophisticated criminal gang called the Avalanche Group, which…

Russians Criminals Use Botnets for Check Counterfeiting

A security researcher has discovered a Russian cyber crime gang that uses botnets to steal and print millions of dollars worth of false invoices. The gang then recruits money mules to cash the counterfeit checks.

The scam, which is highly automated, begins with the infiltration of online check archiving and verification services which often store vast records of previously cashed checks. It then goes through job websites to find email…

Botnet Malware Writer Arrested in Slovenia

A man believed to a malware author has been arrested in Slovenia. The 23-year-old virus writer, known as Iserdo, is said to be the author of the Mariposa virus, which infected more than 12.7 million computers and was dismantled earlier this year.

Since its discovery, law enforcement organizations in the United States and Europe have been working to close down the operators. Police in Spain arrested three individuals suspected of…

Botnet Malware Writers Arrested in Slovenia

Slovenian police have arrested four suspects amid allegations that the four developed the Mariposa botnet malware. The arrests come of the heels of a joint investigation between Slovenian police and the FBI.

Earlier this year, three suspects were arrested in Spain and are charged with distributing the malware. According to STA, a Slovenian news agency, the four suspects are through to have developed the malware used by the…

Cyber Criminals Utilize Social Networks to Control Bots

Researchers at RSA FraudAction Research Lab have recently discovered a banking Trojan being hosted by a public social networking site. Any site which allows users to upload any type of content is vulnerable to the Trojan’s configurations, RSA says.

“The Lab recently traced a social network profile that contained encrypted instructions for a variant of the Brazilian…