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“TDL-4″ Botnet Is Practically Indestructible
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A new and improved botnet that has infected more than four million computers is “practically indestructible,” software security experts say.
“TDL-4,” the name for both the bot Trojan that infects PCs and the ensuing collection of compromised computers, is “the most sophisticated threat today,” said Kaspersky Labs researcher Sergey Golovanov in a detailed analysis Monday.
“[TDL-4] is practically indestructible,” Golovanov said and others agree.
“I wouldn’t say it’s perfectly indestructible, but it is pretty much indestructible,” said Joe Stewart, director of malware research at Dell SecureWorks and an internationally-known botnet expert, in an interview today. “It does a very good job of maintaining itself.”
Golovanov and Stewart based their assessments on a variety of TDL-4′s traits, all which make it an extremely tough character to detect, delete, suppress or eradicate.
Because TDL-4 installs its rootkit on the Master Boot Record (MBR), it is invisible to both the operating system and more, importantly, security software designed to sniff out malicious code.
Further,what makes the botnet indestructible is the combination of its advanced encryption and the use of a public peer-to-peer (P2P) network for the instructions issued to the malware by command-and-control (C&C) servers.
“The way peer-to-peer is used for TDL-4 will make it extremely hard to take down this botnet,” said Roel Schouwenberg, senior malware researcher at Kaspersky, ”The TDL guys are doing their utmost not to become the next gang to lose their botnet.”
Hackers Go After WordPress
March 6, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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We found out Bloggers using the WordPress platform was shutdown by a DDos attack yesterday that apparently affected many blog sites.The DDos hostilities began in the morning and lasted for a couple of hours. The estimates on the DDos attack was thought to be “multiple Gigabits per second and tens of millions of packets per second”, according to sources, WordPress is working with their providers to prevent such acts from ever taking place again.WordPress the attack is over, though in Chicago, Dallas and San Antonio. The good news is that the site is back up. However, while the attack was in progress sources say it was on of the “largest” the organization has ever seen. Even centersThe attack unfortunately hit main three data. Read More…..
Mobile Phone Security Threats On The Rise
February 11, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Mobile phone security threats rose sharply last year as the growing popularity of Internet-enabled mobile devices like smartphones and tablets provided new opportunities for cybercriminals, security software maker McAfee said.
In its fourth-quarter threat report, released on today, McAfee said the number of pieces of new cellphone malware it found in 2010 rose 46 percent over 2009’s level.
“As more users access the Internet from an ever-expanding pool of devices -computer, tablet, smartphone or Internet TV- web-based threats will continue to grow in size and sophistication,” it said.
McAfee, which is being acquired by Intel for $7.68 billion, said it expected PDF and Flash maker Adobe to remain a favorite of cybercriminals this year, after it surpassed Microsoft in popularity as a target in 2010.
It attributed the trend to Adobe’s greater popularity in mobile devices and non-Microsoft environments, coupled with the ongoing widespread use of PDF document files to transfer malware. Read More….