A few weeks ago, the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit identified and arrested a 19-year-old Dutch man who allegedly was operating a botnet known as Shadow. This botnet, unlike more recent examples, used IRC, meaning its traffic was easier to trace than the Web-based command and control traffic used today by most new botnets. Shadow would infect users via Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger.
What's unusual here is that the crime unit then asked Kaspersky Lab to provide the identified victims, people who had unknowingly allowed their computers to become compromised, with instructions on how to neutralize the malware on their systems. While antivirus companies and law enforcement work together all the time, rarely has law enforcement been concerned about cleaning up a victim's machine.
This week CNET's Robert Vamosi spoke by phone with Roel Schouwenberg, senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky, who happens to be based in the Netherlands, about the Shadow botnet.
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IronPort's Pat Peterson joins Robert Vamosi this week to talk about how online criminals make money using botnets.
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How do online criminals make money off of botnets? Previously, we've explored how parts of the Storm worm botnet may have been rented out to others. No matter who owns the botnet, the traffic is usually the same: spam. But what kind of spam?
IronPort Systems, a divison of Cisco, released a report this week (registration required) that identified some of the specific spam messages being used. Not surprising is the pharmaceutical spam. But criminals are also luring unsuspecting individuals with various "work from home" scams. People who fall for this are told to buy expensive products in the United States for delivery overseas. For their effort, they'll receive a percentage of the purchase price. These "money mules," as they are called, are actually cashing out stolen credit cards for foreign criminals.
CNET's Robert Vamosi spoke via phone with Pat Peterson, who is vice president of technology at IronPort.
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Robert Vamosi has appeared on CNN, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, and various other media outlets as an expert on computer viruses, spyware, identity theft, phishing, and other criminal activities on the Internet.
