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Evaluating Email's Feasibility for Botnet Command and Control
White Papers What makes email-based botnets interesting is the lack of clear detection and mitigation strategies that defenders could use to disrupt the botnet. If email providers deploy specialized detection of spam-based botnets, botmasters can alternatively...
[June 30, 2009, 1:19]
Encrypted bots could be the next threat
News We will see encrypted sessions and as things become encrypted, we'll have a more difficult time investigating botnets," Meyers said. Botnets are often rented out by their owners, called bot herders, to relay spam and launch phishing scams to steal...
[November 15, 2005, 9:55]
Bot herders go low key
News The move to pint-size botnets helps attackers have more success in delaying detection of their networks, Sunner said. Maksym Schipka, a senior antivirus researcher at MessageLabs, noted that two other issues have also contributed to the shrinking...
[November 18, 2005, 10:10]
Governments prepare for 'cyber cold war'
News Government agencies are doubtless conducting research on how botnets can be turned into offensive weapons but, before launching a weapon, you need to be sure what the outcome will be — you don't want attacks to spill over to your own allies by...
[December 3, 2007, 10:58]
Police swoop on New Zealand botmaster
News FBI director Robert S Mueller III said botnets are the "weapon of choice" for cybercriminals. In Bot Roast II, we see the diverse and complex nature of crimes that are being committed through the use of botnets," Mueller said.
[November 30, 2007, 7:59]
Spamhaus hits out at ISPs, praises Microsoft
News Cox highlighted the problem of botnets - thousands of networked compromised PCs, typically used for malicious purposes such as spamming - as a problem for the Internet community. Cox said that Windows XP Service Pack 2 had helped to reduce the...
[April 26, 2005, 15:05]
Estonia's cyberattacks: Lessons learned, a year on
News These botnets were used to launch attacks against the routers of ISPs hosting Estonian government sites, and their DNS (domain name system) servers, in an attempt to disable email. Between 30 April and 3 May, there was a "gathering of botnets like...
[May 1, 2008, 14:04]
Crime surge sparks calls for internet Interpol
News According to detective chief inspector Charlie McMurdie of the Metropolitan Police e-crime unit, who is also one of the permanent members of the UK Interpol working group, existing Interpol forums are addressing key priorities in e-crime including...
[December 12, 2006, 16:15]
Botnet gangs collaborate on malware
News There are people who supply botnets, and there are people who 'rent' capacity on these botnets," Hanna said in an email interview. Two criminal groups are collaborating to promote malware, according to botnet researcher Jose Nazario.
[December 11, 2009, 11:01]
Asia: Public enemy number one for spam
News South Korea is a particularly tempting target for spammers due to its advanced technology infrastructure and the economic rewards of setting up networks of zombie computers, or botnets, said Sophos. South Korea has a fantastic Internet structure...
[April 20, 2006, 17:55]
Malware's next trick
News Botnets, which are armies of these hijacked computers, have become the predominant feature of the Internet threat landscape. He sees botnets as a major problem that cannot be easily fixed, because the hijacked machines are mostly home PCs connected...
[April 18, 2006, 16:40]
Government sees silver lining in botnet cloud
News Speaking later to ZDNet UK, Hickson explained that he wasn't arguing that botnets should be encouraged, and insisted that the UK will always be an attractive target to cybercriminals. Richard Allan, former Liberal Democrat MP and head of government...
[November 21, 2005, 14:05]
Worm warfare rages on
News These botnets are rented out to relay spam and launch phishing scams which attempt to steal sensitive personal data for fraud. Botnets have also been used to mount DoS attacks against online businesses targeted by extortion schemes, experts have said.
[August 18, 2005, 9:00]
China leads Asia in malicious online activity
News The amount of spam originating from China, which makes up 25 percent of APJ-originating spam, puts China at the top of the list, Ooi said, noting that this volume is driven largely by the vast number of botnets and spam zombies.
[September 20, 2007, 8:25]
Three men arrested in botnet probe
News Botnets are considered one of the most serious security threats on the Internet. These botnets are typically rented out to relay spam and launch phishing scams, which attempt to steal sensitive personal data for fraud.
[October 10, 2005, 10:10]
Cybercrime threat keeps growing
News Criminals are increasingly using botnets — large groups of hijacked computers — to send out spam and conduct distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks where they bombard a computer system with data.
[November 21, 2006, 12:14]
Blogger targeted in Twitter, Facebook DoS
News Spammers send emails with malicious attachments or URLs to millions of people to create botnets. Criminals also can lease existing botnets for specific campaigns for as little as $0.05 (3p) to $0.10 per bot.
[August 7, 2009, 10:18]
Thanksgiving will bring a Sober hangover
News Normally you would see an auto switch-off function included in the code, because controllers don't want to draw too much attention to their botnets - so there's a cut-off date, and the outbreak stops.
[November 25, 2005, 16:25]
Hackers: Firefox has JavaScript flaw
News He attempted to persuade the presenters to responsibly disclose flaws via Mozilla's bug bounty program instead of using them for malicious purposes such as creating networks of hijacked PCs, called botnets.
[October 2, 2006, 8:25]
Estonia's CTO speaks out on cyberattacks
News The Estonians became uneasy during the second phase of the attack, between 30 April and 3 May, which saw a "gathering of botnets like a gathering of armies", according to Tammet. These botnets were used to launch attacks against the routers of ISPs...
[October 24, 2007, 11:47]
