Botnet Mariposa masters arrested
According to a statement published by the Spanish Ministry of Interior, creators of Mariposa botnet, that infected more than 12 million computers, were arrested.
This botnet collected sensitive data from 800,000 users across 190 countries and infected networks of 1000 companies and 40 major banks. Commercially distributed DIY malware kit, that has own protocols for commutation, was used to build the botnet. Moreover, bots have built-in DDoS (distributed denial-of-service attack) functionality relying on TCP and UDP flood tactics. Propagation vector included MSN, removable media and P2P networks. Attackers were using VPN (virtual private network) services to connect to servers, take over control and issue commands. After infecting sufficient number of bot computers, leader, called Netkairo, launched DoS (Denial of Service) attack that caused crash of an ISP (eng. Internet Service Provider). More information is available at ZDNet web site. |
