In association with heise online

22 April 2009, 12:28

Botnet of 1.9 million infected PCs found

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • submit to slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • submit to reddit

Finjan, the security firm, has discovered a botnet comprising of nearly two million PCs, including many systems in government agencies, businesses and public institutions. Finjan says this is one of the largest botnets, controlled by a single team of six people, it has found this year. The command and control server for the botnet is located in the Ukraine and Finjan found it was not fully secured, allowing Finjan access to some directories to research the botnet.

The infected Windows PCs are spread around numerous countries, with 45 per cent of them in the USA and 6 per cent in the UK. The computers appear to have been mainly infected through holes in Internet Explorer, but holes in the Firefox browser have also been used. The bots have downloaded other programs to record keystrokes and take screen-shots. The botnet is also sold to third parties as botnet zombies, with $50 to $100 being the typical price for one thousand bots. A root-kit is used to hide the malicious software on the computer. Investigative authorities in the US and the UK have been informed of Finjan's findings.

(djwm)

Print Version | Send by email | Permalink: http://h-online.com/-741265
 


  • July's Community Calendar





The H Open

The H Security

The H Developer

The H Internet Toolkit