Tag: BOTNET

A trojan known as Zeus is slowly making its way around the globe. The malicious program has been discovered on more that 74,000 systems, apparently targeting those in government offices and major companies like Merck, Cardinal Health, Paramount Pictures, and Juniper Networks. Zeus has been creeping onto more and more PCs over the last year and a half, collecting corporate log-in information, as ...

M86 Security has released a study (PDF) of the current state of spam, and some of the numbers are quite disturbing. At the end of 2009, 3 billion spam messages were being sent each day. That's a 500-percent increase from the daily amount sent during the first half of 2009. Equally worrisome are reports that the five most popular botnets are responsible for almost 80-percent of spam, indicating ...

It used to be that distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks were strictly the realm of digital gangsters and elite hacker crooks. But, as part of a worrying trend, a growing number of political and activist groups have begun to employ such tactics as a form of protest. What's more, these hacktivists, as they're called, are developing new techniques for taking out servers and defacing Web sites ...

A new IRS-inspired e-mail phishing scam emerged last week and hit accounts across the nation, USA Today reports. Unlike previous IRS-related scams, which enticed people with promises of free stimulus money, last week's spam blast attempted to ensnare targets with scare tactics. The e-mail message, which appeared to be from the IRS, alerted people to the supposed fact that earnings had been ...

A month after first announcing that the iPhone had a serious security flaw in how it handled text messages (and even longer still since it was first brought to Apple's attention), Charlie Miller at last publicly demonstrated the attack at yesterday's Black Hat Security Conference, and released a paper detailing how it is executed. The flaw, which allows a hacker to hijack a phone by flooding it ...

Botnets, networks of infected devices that work together to send spam and steal data, are already quite commonplace on PCs. But now, security firm Symantec reports that it has discovered the world's first cell phone botnet. It was only a couple of months ago that we got our first warning that botnets might be making their way to handsets, but now the first one, called 'Sexy Space,' has been ...

There are plenty of malicious programs that can do plenty of nasty things to plenty of computers, but, far and away, the most common type of attack results in what is known as a zombie. A zombie is a hijacked computer that can be remote-controlled by the attacker and made to do his or her bidding. According to a recent study by security firm McAffee, there were 50-percent more zombie computers ...

For years now, Mac users have flaunted their seeming immunity to computer viruses, malware, and other noxious applications that plague the hearts, minds, and hard drives of PC users. However, there have been exceptions to the Mac's invincible reputation, like the one app from last summer that stole photos and all sorts of other information. According to security software firm Symantec, there's ...

The newest trend in Internet infection is growing at an alarming rate, according to Breach Security Lab's recently released Web Hacking Incidents Database (WHID) 2008 Annual Report. The attack is called an SQL injection and it works by corrupting the database layer of a Web site. This type of attack, once thought nearly obsolete due to the legwork required of the hacker, was resurrected when the ...

A few months ago, the Federal Trade Commission worked to shut down the spammy behavior of one California-based ISP called McColo. The company was found to be hosting a number of so-called botnets (groups of computers that send e-mails and spread malicious software) that were responsible for a huge portion of the world's spam. When McColo was shut down, inboxes around the world breathed a sigh ...

In the online world, there are various levels of hackers. Lowest are the script kiddies, would-be miscreants who lack the skills to be a proper threat. Then there are the white hatters who infiltrate corporate and government networks largely just to see if they can -- often alerting the necessary authorities about the flaws. Worst are the skilled black hat hackers -- Dshocker was one of those, ...

Cyber criminals have proven again and again that they're a step or two ahead of the law enforcement and computer techs that are trying to stop them, but a new report says criminals aren't restraining themselves to viruses and shady emails. The survey shows that distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attacks are increasing in number and potency and could threaten the largest Web sites and ...

The FBI is reporting that computer crime rose dramatically this year and is costing the U.S. tens of millions of dollars. In particular, two types of attacks have seen an increase in popularity. Botnets spread malicious software via a virus. These Botnets turn infected PCs into unwilling participants in a network of PCs that "recruit" other computers and harvest data. The other type of attacks ...

A new report in the New York Times says that Russian cyber-gangs are turning the tools of system administrators against them. The gang spreads an application called Coreflood by hijacking administrative accounts, then infecting the rest of the network through this trusted source. The malicious program turns the infected PCs into a vast network of computers working in unison to steal data and ...

Be wary when opening e-mail greeting cards this Valentine's Day if you don't know the sender. As Switched.com has been warning all its readers for a few weeks now, the message could turn out to be a computer virus, in this case known as a "botnet," which can take over your computer to send more viruses out, link to other computers doing the same, or even steal your personal information. The ...