• 2012 Outlook: The end of everything?

  Welcome to 2012, the year the world ends. Yes, in case you haven't been following the eschatologists out there (and most of them are definitely "out there"), 2012 will be "it" for humanity. The "last hurrah". Fini. Au revoir.

• Botnets decentralise after Redmond’s kingpin takedowns

  Recent efforts by Microsoft and law enforcement to take down the biggest spamming botnets may have helped fight pharmaceutical companies but they have had little effect on overall spam levels.

• Zeus leaks give tools to researchers, attackers

  The source code and a manual to the popular crimeware creation kit Zeus has been leaked, perhaps giving defenders additional tools to fight infections but also raising concerns that criminals may use the source code to create a rapidly expanding compendium of variants.

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  Group used 30,000-node botnet in MasterCard, PayPal attacks

  PayPal's website was hit late Wednesday by two botnets as online activists continued their Web attacks on companies that have severed their relationships with WikiLeaks.

• Botnets remain at 2009 levels: Symantec

  Efforts to combat botnets throughout the year have largely come to nought with the total number of active bots in 2010 — approximately five million worldwide — expected to be roughly equal to that of 2009, according to Symantec.

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  Is your PC bot-infested? here's how to tell

  As fireworks boomed on the Fourth of July, thousands of compromised computers attacked U.S. government Web sites. A botnet of more than 200,000 computers, infected with a strain of 2004's MyDoom virus, attempted to deny legitimate access to sites such as those of the Federal Trade Commission and the White House. The assault was a bold reminder that botnets continue to be a massive problem.

• Latest malware trick: outsourcing quality assurance

  Creators of Waledac malware enlisted the Conficker botnet as a tool to spread malware of their own, marking the first time Conficker was made available for hire, according to Cisco's mid-year security report.This was symptomatic of a wider trend Cisco noted of malware purveyors using established business practices to expand their illegal enterprises. Cisco likened the arrangement between Waledac and Conficker to a partner ecosystem, a term Cisco uses to describe its collaboration with other vendors.

• Botnets: 4 Reasons It's Getting Harder to Find and Fight Them

  The perpetual proliferation of botnets is hardly surprising when one considers just how easy it is for the bad guys to hijack computers without tipping off the users.
  

• Up next: Cellular botnets, cyber militias

  The ability of malware writers to consistently stay ahead of those seeking to stop them has been a constant factor in the security industry over the past several years.

Whitepapers about botnets

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  Six tips for choosing a unified threat management (UTM) solution

  As network security grows more complex, businesses are demanding the simplicity of unified threat management (UTM). Businesses like yours are replacing multiple, outdated and costly appliances from different vendors with a single, reliable UTM solution. The best solutions offer a more powerful way to manage network security today and in the future. UTM also promises to slash your network security management efforts and hardware costs. This whitepaper offers you detailed advice on how to choose the comprehensive unified threat management (UTM) that best suits your business.

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  Simplifying branch office security

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  Botnets: The dark side of cloud computing