Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Despite Interpol's efforts, super botnet Bredolab may still be around

Experts now acknowledge needed that internet hacking has become the crime wave in history , bigger and more far reaching than anything ever known, and can affect the innocent and unsuspecting anywhere.

Proof of the extent of cyber crime is the news this week that the Dutch High Tech Crime Team have rounded up some of the ring leaders behind a super botnet by the name of Bredolab, which is estimated to have infected millions of computers worldwide.

Bredolab has been described as a particularly malicious software program programmed to steal login and password details as well as generating spam e-mails that ran into the billions over the last year.

The Dutch virus hunters announced this week that they had discovered and disconnected slightly less than 150 internet servers that had been compromise to distribute the Bredolab botnet.

The servers were part of a network operated by one of Holland's largest web hosting providers. The servers were being used to host just two domains between them, and were handling a tremendous bulk of material illegal gathered by the software.

The special task force operating out if Holland succeeded in ascertaining that one of the dodgy domains was registered in Kazakhstan, albeit through a co-location facility. Hackers are no fools and regular use co-locations to cover up any traces of their real identity. Which means that the real owners would be virtually impossible to trace. The domain, which needs to remain nameless at this point as Interpol inquiries continue, was being used a front for a malware posing as a free antivirus program under the title of "Anti- virus plus. "

The good news is that authorities in Armenia, working in conjunction with the Dutch police, arrested a man in his twenties who is alleged to be one of the major distributors of the software that controls Bredolab. Expectations are that he will be extradited to the Netherlands, where he could face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.

The bad news is that Bredolab comes in a number of variants and only one of them was identified as being used by this particular distributor, and there may be several other variations still in circulation.

Security experts speculate that cybercriminals could have developed their own specific code which they have used and will continue to use to compromise computers throughout the World.

The only defence that surfers have against these sophisticate "silent killer" botnets is to install the most powerful anti-virus software available on the market today. Software that has been developed by security experts who understand the constant and unrelenting efforts of cyber hackers to invade and control our computers.

 

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