key going into lock
Continue Reading

Millions of Facebook Passwords and Other Passwords Stolen in Massive Breach by Pony Botnet Controller

The Pony Botnet Controller virus – which may be on your computer – has stolen millions of Facebook passwords, Google passwords, Twitter passwords and Yahoo passwords, along with log-in credentials from email accounts and even FTP accounts. All told more than 2 million account usernames and passwords were stolen.

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

Grum Zombie Botnet Shut down, Says Spam-Fighting Researcher Atif Mushtaq

Grum, the world’s third-largest botnet, has been shutdown, according to one of the security researchers who helped take the botnet offline, Atif Mushtaq. Mushtaq, who works for the “malware intelligence lab” FireEye, announced the good news on the security company’s blog yesterday after two intense days battling Grum. You may see less spam related to cheap “Cilais,” “Vigara,” or “Levtira” (misspellings of Cialis, Viagra, and Levitra, respectively) and fewer unwanted messages advertising Rolex watches as a result of the Grum botnet shutdown. With a command and control server in the Netherlands, and additional servers in countries such as Panama and Russia, taking down Grum required international coordination and effort.

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

BBC Rents a Russian Botnet and Spams and DOSes in Name of Journalism

The BBC is under fire today for a stunt that it pulled a few days ago, in which it rented a Russian bot net (also sometimes called a spam bot), and then sent millions of pieces of spam, and DOSed a corporate server.

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

“Obama Quits” Spam Harvests PCs for Zombie Botnet

The Waledec botnet is using spam that claims that “Obama Quits”, explaining that “Barack Obama abandoned sinking ship” and that Obama doesn’t want any more to be president, in order to lure unsuspecting users to add their PCs to its group of zombied computers that it uses to do its dirty work. Other subject lines include “Who Will Be Our President Now?”, “End time for the USA”, and “Haven’t you heard latest news about our president-elect?”

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

Air Force Brass Suggests Carpet Bombing the Internet with BotNet vs. Bot-Net

A top U.S. Air Force brass has recommended that the U.S. military create their own super bot-net to attack other bot-nets that are attacking U.S. military computer networks. One of the main problems with this idea, among others, is that it will fry thousands of computers belonging to innocent end-users around the world – users who have no idea that their home computer has been controlled remotely as part of a bot-net ring.

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

Botnets Turn to Gambling

It’s long been apparent to our readers that we at the Internet Patrol are not exactly blind fans of online gaming. And we don’t exactly holding up gambling sites as paragons of Internet virtue, either. So news from last week’s e-crime congress in London, bringing to light a
case of the bad (a gambling site) being brought to its knees by the
worse (a botnet), has us pondering the larger implications.

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

The Real Profile of a Zombie Botnet Waking Up and Taking Over an ISP’s Customers Computers

Talk about the latest detailed news on botnets! The ultimate of an inside look at botnets – it is the real, first-hand account of what happened this week when a zombie botnet woke up, based on some unseen signal triggered or programmed by the botnet owner, and took over hundreds of customer computers at a large US broadband ISP.

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

“It’s Immoral, but the Money Makes it Right,” says Apprehended Botnet Operator Jeanson Ancheta

“Bot Herder” Jeanson James Ancheta, the BotNet operator taken down by the Feds, told colleagues of operating the botnet of more than 400,000 infected PCs, “It’s immoral, but the money makes it right.”

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

Search Marketing Company 180 Solutions Sues Affiliates Over Botnet Installation of 180solutions Software on Users’ Computers

Search marketing company 180 Solutions has filed a lawsuit against several of its own affiliates, after it discovered that those affiliates were using botnets to install the 180solutions solution on unsuspecting users’ computers, without their permission. 180 Solutions explains that they “provide search assistant software that delivers consumers to highly…

Yes the FBI Got Hacked. Yes They Know. Yes It's Worrying
Continue Reading

Yes the FBI Got Hacked. Yes They Know. Yes It’s Worrying.

Over the weekend none other than the FBI had their system hacked. The hackers then proceeded to send email out ‘from’ eims@ic.fbi.gov with the subject “Urgent: Threat actor in systems”, using the FBI’s own mail servers and warning that of a threat from “Vinny Troia” whom, the email says, is part of an extortion gang called “TheDarkOverlord”.

thomaskeller malware scam email
Continue Reading

Do NOT Open Email Links from gcromwell@thomaskeller.com

A new malware scam is hitting email inboxes. The email sample that we have comes from an email address at thomaskeller.com (ours is specifically from gcromwell@thomaskeller.com), and claims to have received an invoice from your company. They even include your company name in the email, making it seem more legit. But it isn’t.

Dan Geer
Continue Reading

Security Expert Dan Geer: We Are All Intelligence Officers Now (Full Text Here)

Last month, at the RSA Conference, computer security expert Dan Geer told the assembled security and cryptography experts “We are all intelligence officers now.” (RSA stands for Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman – Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman together developed the RSA crypto algorithm.)

2-factor authentication
Continue Reading

How to Set Up Google 2-Step Verification, and Why You Should

Your eyes may glaze over when anybody mentions Google two-step SMS verification (also known in some circles as Google 2-Factor Authentication), but in reality, if you have any sort of Google account (Gmail, etc.), and a cell phone to get a text message, it’s easy as pie to set up. It is certainly far easier to set up than it is to deal with the aftermath of someone hacking into your Google account.

bitcoin explained
Continue Reading

Bitcoins (“BTC”) and Bitcoin Mining Explained in Plain English

There has been a lot in the news lately about Bitcoins (known in the trade as “BTC”) and Bitcoin Mining, but to the average person it’s still very confusing. What are Bitcoins? How does Bitcoin Mining work? What is the Silk Road, which is often mentioned in the same breath as Bitcoins? And why is Congress holding hearings on Bitcoins? Here are the plain English explanations for all of these.

The Internet Patrol default featured image
Continue Reading

Beware the Flood of Boston Marathon Bombing and Texas Explosion Scam Emails

As was to be expected, there has been a massive swell of scam emails riding on the coattails of the back-to-back tragedies of the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion. “CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Fertilizer Plant Explosion” reads one bogus subject line; “Aftermath to explosion at Boston Marathon” reads another.