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Another day, another botnet. This time, it has the rather pretty name of Mariposa - it means butterfly - and is believed to be one of the world's largest. More than 13 million PCs were infected by Mariposa, which apparently infected more than half the world's 1,000 largest companies and at least 40 major financial institutions. The botnet was , and three men have been arrested. According to Panda Security, the three men used the aliases Netkairo, Ostiator and Johnyloleante. "Designed for information theft, Mariposa has stolen personal data from millions of compromised computers," says Defence Intelligence. "Amongst this personal...

I was checking my Twitter account today (@davidioxley) when I saw that the FBI Press Office (@FBIPressOffice) had just posted a lengthy series of tweets concerning wanted fugitives. Among these were terrorists, pimps, drug kingpins, and your regular run-of-the-mill scum of the earth. Alas, no one looked familiar. Guess I’m going to have to work for that $1,000,000 instead… What caught my attention, however, were three tweets that began with the words “Cyber Criminals.” Currently there are four cyber criminals profiled on the FBI site. It’s not quite “America’s Most Wanted,” but here’s our lineup (in alphabetical order). All pictures...

The rise of cyber attacks - and the call for global collaboration on solutions that reduce the threat - has led the United States Secret Service to become the sixth government agency to join Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program (TSCP). The move reflects a growing awareness of the need for a united effort and common solutions to defend against the advanced persistent threat of cyber attacks against nations and commercial organizations alike. High-profile attacks, such as GhostNet and the U.S. electrical grid infiltration, create the imperative for government agencies and private industry to work together on viable and robust solutions that...

SNIPPET: "Today the world faces a wide array of cyber threats. The majority of these threats are aimed at the Western democracies and the Western-leaning countries of other regions. The reason for this is simple: They are ripe targets. These countries are either highly dependent, almost completely in some cases, on cyber means for nearly every significant societal interaction or are racing toward that goal. They seek the speed, accuracy, efficiency, and ease that a "wired" system of systems brings and all the benefits that accrue to such a situation. The danger we face is that there are many individuals,...

TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2009 "In gaz we trust"? I'd rather change GazTranzitStroyInfo's vision to HangUp Team's infamous - "in fraud we trust". It is somehow weird to what lengths would certain cybercriminals go to create a feeling of legitimacy of their enterprise.

Traditionally, botnets have spread through PCs running Windows, and not Macs, in part because of the low market share worldwide of computers like the iMac, shown here behind Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a 2006 photo. (Paul Sakuma/Associated Press) A piece of malicious software unwittingly shared over a peer-to-peer network in January was the key tool in what security researchers are saying was the first known attempt to create a botnet of Mac computers. Researchers at Symantec say the Trojan, called OSX.Iservice, hid itself in pirated versions of the Apple application iWork '09 and the Mac version of Adobe Photoshop...

Foreign hackers have reportedly managed to break into the computer network controlling the nation's power grid. The discovery has raised alarm about how such unauthorized access could be used to harm the U.S., though the discovery may motivate actions to strengthen the security systems surrounding the nation's infrastructure. A Wall Street Journal report that foreign hackers have repeatedly penetrated the U.S. power grid computer network has delivered a loud wake-up call. Cyber-spies from countries including China and Russia have breached the electrical infrastructure's computer network and left software tools behind that would have allowed them to control or destroy infrastructure...

SNIPPET: "Oops, they keep doing it again and again. The web site of the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C (ethiopianembassy.org) has been compromised and is currently iFrame-ed to point to a live exploits serving URL on behalf of Russian cybercriminals, naturally in a multitasking mode since the iFrame used to act as a redirector in several other malware campaigns. Despite that the iFrame domain (1tvv .com/index.php) is already "taken care of", details on the original campaign can still be provided."