Russian Gang Hijacking PCs In Vast Criminal Scheme

New York Times:

A criminal gang is using software tools normally reserved for computer network administrators to infect thousands of PCs in corporate and government networks with programs that steal passwords and other information, a security researcher has found.

The new form of attack indicates that little progress has been made in defusing the threat of botnets, networks of infected computers that criminals use to send spam, steal passwords and do other forms of damage, according to computer security investigators.

Several security experts say that although attacks against network administrators are not new, the systematic use of administrative software to spread malicious software has not been widely seen until now.

The gang was identified publicly in May by Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks, a computer security firm in Atlanta. Mr. Stewart, who has determined that the gang is based in Russia, was able to locate a central program controlling as many as 100,000 infected computers across the Internet. The program was running at a commercial Internet hosting computer center in Wisconsin.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[LiberalBuzz]

When they say they are beyond the reach of police...>BULL SHIITE!

Just attack the same way back to them. Infect and destroy their computers. IF they can do it I am sure the U.S. could recruit a few killer hackers with killer apps from DEFCON in Las Vegas and get 'em! No reason to play nice with these bastiches!

[mamacat]

And how do we stay secure from this threat?

[joebaggadonuts]

And if it turns out that this is sponsored by the Russian military and the occasional bank withdrawal is a ruse?

[BlackbirdHighway]

Ubuntu rules! Windows sucks!

[Deaninphilly]

Linux, I never enter any personal information on a computer running any microsoft product and have been fine for the last 6-7 years now.

[ChiGuy]

For the past 6 weeks, everyday, at least four times during a typical two and a half to three hour internet session, I have been getting notices from NAV of the blocking of an attempted penetration by a Portscan program.

Is this what I am dealing with?

[darthdarcy]

No that was probably the NSA or DARPA...different criminal gangs..

[Squalish]

A port scan is a general check that can be done by any number of malicious programs, and searches for applications that you are running which are currently listening for incoming messages from the internet, and might be exploited to run foreign code.

It's no more specific than that - pinging your computer's ports is not illegal, though what follows may be.

It's akin to a person walking down a parking lot and getting an eyeful of whether anybody's left their car running while they run an errand, or better yet, knocking on all the doors in your neighborhood to see if anyone invites them inside. What they do with that informatio­n/opportun­ity is up to them.

This story is not about some central figure in all internet hacking, it's a story about a powerful unit (most likely a for-profit gang, rather than an attention-seeker) being taken down. There are a thousand others that were better, and a hundred thousand that are more amateur.