Four days ago, top-notch computer security researchers launched an assault on Waledac, a highly sophisticated botnet responsible for spreading spam and malicious software. As of Thursday, more than 60,000 PCs worldwide that have been infected with malicious code are now under the control of researchers, marking the effort one of the most highly successful coordinated against organized cybercrime.
By day, Andre DiMino is a professional digital forensic analyst. By night, he serves as director of an organization known as Shadowserver Foundation, a group of volunteers dedicated to sleuthing out cybercriminals and shutting them down. Here’s his story.
REDMOND, Wash. — In a windowless room on Microsoft’s campus here, T. J. Campana, a cybercrime investigator, connects an unprotected computer running an early version of Windows XP to the Internet. In about 30 seconds the computer is “owned.”
Weeks before bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace. Researchers at Shadowserver, a volunteer group that tracks malicious network activity, reported that the Web site of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been rendered inoperable for 24 hours by multiple D.D.O.S. attacks. They said the command and control server that directed the attack was based in the United States and had come online several weeks before it began the assault.
You may or may not have heard of the Shadowserver foundation. It’s a volunteer run organisation designed to track malware, botnet activity and electronic fraud.
A new white paper published by the nonprofit botnet-tracker Shadowserver Foundation sheds some light on one segment of activity on the Russian Business Network (RBN).
Nicholas Albright’s first foray into some of the darkest alleys of the Internet came in November 2004, shortly after his father committed suicide. About a month following his father’s death, Albright discovered that online criminals had broken into his dad’s personal computer and programmed it to serve as part of a worldwide, distributed network for storing pirated software and movies.