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Mariposa Botnet Suspects Nabbed by Spain - 13 million+ Zombie PCs Infected by Virus

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 8:48AM |

Today's security headlines read "Spain busts global "botnet" masterminds", which reveals that over 13 million computers from "homes, universities, companies and government agencies in almost every country in the world" were infected by a virus that turned computers into zombies. A botnet is a group or network of bot-infected PCs that are all controlled by the same "command and control center", controllable via a remote computer that can silently access personal data such as credit card data, online banking passwords and other personal information.

Known as the "Mariposa Network" after the Spanish word for butterfly, the world's biggest computer virus network was apparently "rented out" to cybercriminals by the three Spanish nationals who created the zombie network. The network was shut down just a few months ago (December 2009) after the FBI was alerted to the virus-infected network by Canadian information security firm Defence Intelligence (go Canada!).

Investigators claim that more than half of the Fortune 1,000 largest US companies and more than 40 major banks were affected by the virus, "It would be easier for me to provide a list of the Fortune 1000 companies that weren?t compromised, rather than the long list of those who were," said Defence Intelligence CEO Christopher Davis.

Which begs the question....WHY wasn't this virus, as dangerous and widespread as it was, detected sooner by the over 13 MILLION computers that became infected and hijacked by the Mariposa Network? A Defence Intelligence blog post reveals that "only 6 of the 41 antivirus groups was able to detect the malware. Given time however, most antivirus companies are able to identify the same binary." But how late is too late once your financial data is compromised?

A preliminary analysis by the Mariposa Working Group, the collaborative collaborative effort between international security experts and law enforcement agencies to eradicate the botnet, reveals the following:

• Once infected by the Mariposa bot client, the botmaster installed different malware (advanced keyloggers, banking trojans like Zeus, remote access trojans, etc.) in order to gain additional functionality into the zombie PCs.

• The botmaster made money by selling parts of the botnet, installing pay-per-install toolbars, selling stolen credentials for online services and using the stolen banking credentials and credit cards to make transactions to overseas mules.

• The Mariposa botnet spread extremely effectively via P2P networks, USB drives, and MSN links.

We're happy to see that the Mariposa botnet perpetrators have been apprehended for their criminal actions, which is not often the case since authorities rarely catch cybercriminals behind these botnets, "the bulk of which are controlled by syndicates based in eastern Europe, southeast Asia, China and Latin America" according to the article.

"Mariposa's the biggest ever to be shut down, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. These things come up constantly," said Mark Rasch, former head of the U.S. Department of Justice computer crimes unit. Reassuring, isn't it? With the growing rise of social networks and the millions of users who still remain vulnerably unprotected against viruses (~50% of global PC users by some industry estimates), the Mariposa botnet incident serves as another big wake up call that every PC user must have effective AntiVirus protection.

The financial stakes are too high for millions of PC users, corporations, and governments to ignore the need for us to work collectively to increase global AntiVirus penetration of security solutions that truly protect the collective Internet community.

Please do your part to make the Web a safer place by protecting yourself and your friends with Immunet Protect; if you do run a companion AntiVirus product that requires frequent updates, you'll want to make sure that it is in fact on and up to date.

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Reader Comments (16)

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June 6, 2010 |

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That is a pretty scary infection, especially considering the scale. We've seen an increase in identity theft worldwide, and that is only made possible by large scale collection of personal information. Very interesting post; will be tracking your posts in the future.

July 5, 2010 |

Sam Sanders

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July 24, 2010 |

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Scary stuff. I live in Alicante Spain and I would hate to think that these guys are on my doorstep.

July 24, 2010 |

Alicante Nelson

It's a real shame that these guys are able to infect so many PC's, apparently with ease, but as someone who lives and works in Spain it really doesn't surprise me.

It's almost a national trend to see who is most able to rip off software, hack into websites, and write scripts to destroy other peoples work.

It doesn't give people any confidence in Spain in general, and certainly makes carrying out online transactions, such as internet banking a little more difficult as companies attempt to protect their websites from attack!

July 26, 2010 |

Mijas Golf

Mariposa botnet is only a popular case (13 million of infected PCS), we can not get and buy a botnet doing a simple google search but is not imposible after of weeks or months contacting hackers. Botnets will continue existing while exits people who doesn't understand the basic of using a computer, simple use it without knowing fundaments and secure use of a computer.

Virus, botnets will continue being the best friends of big antivirus companies, they get a lot of money slowing down computers and providing a false sense of security.

This is the fist time that i get Immunet and is good and don't give false alarmas as expensive antivirus does. For my job i have tested a lot of antivirus i use them only inside virtual machines for testing purposes but this product don't damage my computer, thanks.
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July 26, 2010 |

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Conficker and the mariposa netbot(if is true that 10 millon of computer were infected) will pass to history as the largest computer worm, netbot infections until now
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Go Canada! 13 million seems unreal....thats the equivalent of an entire huge city...how ridiculous that it takes that many infected for it to be caught.

July 30, 2010 |

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