Botnet taken down as ringleaders are arrested

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Mar 3, 2010

'Mariposa' included almost 13 million zombies.

Spanish authorities have managed to take down the Mariposa botnet - one of the largest of its kind which is believed to have infected in 12.7 million computers worldwide - as well as arresting three of its botherders.

Stories of botnets being taken down have become more prevalent recently; however, usually this is by means of taking the command and control centres down - which leaves the computers infected and the crooks behind the botnet free to regain control over their network of zombies. By arresting the botherders themselves, one would hope that Mariposa has been given a more serious blow.

While the botnet was used for a wide range of malicious activities, from identity theft to running DDoS attacks and sending spam, first reports suggest that global spam levels have dropped over the past fews days.

The Guardia Civil, the Spanish national police, has revealed that the three suspects are in their 20s or early 30s. According to a spokesman, they are neither brilliant programmers nor mafiosi who like fast cars and expensive clothes: "The most frightening thing is they are normal people who are earning a lot of money with cybercrime". More arrests are expected in other countries.

More at Associated Press here, or at Panda Security here. Panda, together with Canadian company Defence Intelligence assisted the police in their investigations.

Posted on 03 March 2010 by Virus Bulletin

twitter.png
fb.png
linkedin.png
hackernews.png
reddit.png

 

Latest posts:

VBSpam tests to be executed under the AMTSO framework

VB is excited to announce that, starting from the Q3 test, all VBSpam tests of email security products will be executed under the AMTSO framework.

In memoriam: Prof. Ross Anderson

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of Professor Ross Anderson a few days ago.

In memoriam: Dr Alan Solomon

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of industry pioneer Dr Alan Solomon earlier this week.

New paper: Nexus Android banking botnet – compromising C&C panels and dissecting mobile AppInjects

In a new paper, researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Bansal provide details of a security vulnerability in the Nexus Android botnet C&C panel that was exploited in order to gather threat intelligence, and present a model of mobile AppInjects.

New paper: Collector-stealer: a Russian origin credential and information extractor

In a new paper, F5 researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Chaturvedi present a 360 analysis of Collector-stealer, a Russian-origin credential and information extractor.

We have placed cookies on your device in order to improve the functionality of this site, as outlined in our cookies policy. However, you may delete and block all cookies from this site and your use of the site will be unaffected. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to Virus Bulletin's use of data as outlined in our privacy policy.