Mariposa bot herders apply for job with security firm

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   May 5, 2010

Applicants weren't successful, but may not see prison either.

Panda Labs' Luis Corrons believed he was the victim if a practical joke when two people who had been involved in the running of the Mariposa botnet applied for a job at his company.

It wasn't a joke though: the two Spaniards who visited the company in March really were the people behind the online nicknames 'Ostiator' and 'Netkaira', who had been involved in the day-to-day running of Mariposa. After their botnet had been taken down, they quickly ran out of money and hoped they could reach an agreement with Panda, who they thought might be interested in using their knowledge.

Their involvement in the running of the botnet meant that Panda wouldn't consider hiring the bot herders and even if they had, the pair's relatively sketchy technical skills made them unsuitable as employees. They did not give up though, contacting Corrons through Twitter and meeting him again in April. When they were turned down for a second time, Netkairo claimed to have found vulnerabilities in Panda's anti-virus software.

The unusual boldness of the crooks can be explained by the fact that in Spain it is not illegal to run a botnet. The Guardia Civil, the Spanish national police, is now trying to charge the pair for stealing identities through their botnet.

More at Brian Krebs' blog here and at The Register here.

Panda's Pedro Bustamante and Defence Intelligence's Chris Davis will present a paper on "The Mariposa effect" at VB2010; registration for the conference is now open.

Posted on 05 May 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.