Group items tagged

A security researcher has found that hackers are using Twitter as a means to distribute instructions to a network of compromised computers, known as a botnet. The traditional way of managing botnets is using IRC, but botnet owners are continuously working on finding new ways of keeping their networks up and running, and Twitter seems to be the latest trick.

BBC Click's tweet states that they took legal advice following comments on the potential violation of U.K's Computer Misuse Act. There's a slight chance that you may have unknowingly participated in a recent experiment conducted by the BBC. In a bit of an awkward and highly unnecessary move, a team at the BBC's technology program Click has purchased a botnet consisting of 22,000 malware infected PCs, self-spammed themselves on a Gmail account, and later on DDoS-ed a a backup site owned by security company Prevx (with prior agreement), all for the sake of proving that botnets in general do what they're supposed to - facilitate cybercrime. A video of the experiment is already available. Here are more details : Upon finishing the experiment, they claim to have shut down the botnet, and interestingly notified the affected users. Exposing cybercrime or exposing the obvious, the experiment raises a lot of ethical issues. For instance, how did they manage to contact the owners of the infected hosts given that according to the team they didn't access any personal information on them? It appears that they modified the desktop wallpapers of all the infected hosts to include a link notifying them that they've been part of the experiment. Thanks, but no thanks.

Buying and renting tools used by cybercriminals to conduct attacks and steal credentials is becoming much easier for the average person. "For Rent" signs hang on botnets, automated hacking toolkits are sold at bargain prices, and the data reaped by the criminal activity is sold and traded in online forums on a daily basis. Researchers at networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. are warning of the increasingly sophisticated cybercriminal underground economy and how it could be attractive to those having trouble finding work or facing layoffs in a troubled global economy. Meanwhile, cybercriminals are borrowing some of the best strategies from legitimate companies and forming partnerships with one another to help make their illegal activities more lucrative, according to Cisco.