botnets

News

• AT&T reluctant to support FCC call to adopt new PC security measures

  The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants the ISP broadband providers to help battle botnets by being more active in helping their subscribers eradicate malware infections on their PCs. But AT&T's chief security officer said AT&T is reluctant to go beyond its current anti-malware efforts.

• 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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  ISPs essential to controlling spam botnets: OECD

  Internet service providers (ISPs) are important control points in the ongoing effort to control spam and botnets, according to a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

• Botnet takedown may yield valuable data

  Researchers are hoping to get a better insight on botnets after taking down part of Pushdo, one of the top five networks of hacked computers responsible for most of the world's spam.

• Guilty plea after botnet tested with DDoS on ISP

  The second man charged in 2006 computer attacks on The Planet and T35 Hosting has agreed to plead guilty.

• New Storm worm may not last long

  A new variant of the Storm worm has emerged, but it does not appear to be as well-designed as its older relative, according to computer security researchers.

• Texas man to plead guilty to building botnet-for-hire

  A Mesquite, Texas, man is set to plead guilty to training his 22,000-PC botnet on a local ISP -- just to show off its firepower to a potential customer.

• Zeus botnet exploits unpatched PDF flaw

  The Zeus botnet is now using an unpatched flaw in Adobe's PDF document format to infect users with malicious code, security researchers said today.

• After takedown, botnet-linked ISP Troyak resurfaces

  Last week FBI Director Robert Mueller called the fight against hackers "the cyber equivalent of cat-and-mouse." On Wednesday security experts trying to take down the Zeus botnet got a taste of what he meant.

• Zeus botnet dealt a blow as ISP Troyak knocked out

  Internet service providers linked to the notorious Zeus botnet have been taken down, knocking out a third of the command-and-control servers that run the network of hacked machines.

• FBI embeds cyber-investigators in Ukraine, Estonia

  Hoping to catch cybercrooks, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun embedding agents with law enforcement agencies in Estonia, the Ukraine and the Netherlands.