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botnet posts

Filed under: Security, Social Software

Fake Facebook password-reset emails are a botnet attack

If you didn't ask to have your Facebook password reset, think twice before opening an email that looks like it's from Facebook's support team. A lot of these fake password-reset emails have been going out lately, and the attachments they contain can take over your computer and add it to the Bredolab botnet, according to ZDnet.

Your first clue that these emails are sketchy is that they contain a zipped .exe file, which is a horribly insecure and inefficient way to send an account password. Although the mail looks like it comes from support@facebook.com, the address is just spoofed to fool you. The botnet behind this attack, Bredolab, is reportedly involved in some large-scale spamming and identity theft activities, so don't risk letting your computer become part of it.

[via ZDNet]

Filed under: Internet, Security, News

FBI finds 1 million bot-infected computers

Security Center XPThe FBI is announcing a crackdown on "botherders," or the unscrupulous folks who send out viruses and trojans to hijack your computer and use it for their own nefarious purposes. Sorry, had to make it sound like something out of an old Western there to fit wit the term "botherder."

Anyway, the FBI says it's identified over a million potentially infected IP addresses as part of an ongoing investigtion.

The feds also used their press release to highlight several recent arrests of people accused of operating botnets for their own financial gain, including spam-king Robert Soloway, Jason Michael Downey of Kentucy, and James C. Brewer of Texas who allegedly infected Chicago area hospitals. Come on, hospitals?

The FBI basically recommends you regularly update your anti-virus software and use a firewall to avoid having your computer taken over. And they say they'll be contacting owners of the infected computers they've identified -- but will not be asking for personal information over email, so don't give out your passwords to anyone who says they're from the FBI.

Filed under: Internet, Security, News

Your Internet : Now with triple the bots!


Creepy. The number of compromised computers controlled as a part of large botnets has tripled in recent weeks. According to Shadowserver Foundation, a group dedicated to monitoring the dark slimy underbelly of our beloved Internet.

Botnets are often used to send spam, but are also used for denial of service attacks, phishing sites, and essentially every dark and seedy Internet task you can imagine. Their dynamic and distributed nature make them incredibly difficult to disable.

Filed under: Security, News

Botnet do da jailhouse rock

BotnetChristopher Maxwell, of California was sent to prison for 37 months (3 years) for using viruses to plant adware on people's computers, netting over $100,000. His ring of hackers broke into 629,000 PCs (most running Windows) including several at government installations. Chris is the latest criminal and hacker (no they aren't the same thing) to be jailed for computer crimes in recent months. Botnet (Chris's operation) has been officially shut-down and the good people who were infected by Chris's viruses I'm sure still have the software on their systems. That will keep Geek-Squad in business for a long time. Chris, we're hurt that you would do such a thing. The only question on all of our minds is why?

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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