Neowin News Feed for: Botnet

The Reign of Botnets: Defending Against Abuses eBook (worth $40) now free

Sponsored — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:00:01 +0000

A top-to-bottom discussion of website bot attacks and how to defend against them. The ebook, worth $40, is now free to download. Read more...

US Department of Justice smashes 911 S5 botnet run by Chinese national

Paul Hill — Thu, 30 May 2024 00:38:01 +0000

The US Department of Justice has announced the arrest of YunHe Wang for operating what could be the largest botnet ever. While he has been charged, Wang has not yet been convicted. Read more...

A Russian-controlled botnet of hundreds of routers has now been shut down by the US DOJ

John Callaham — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 19:46:01 +0000

The US Department of Justice announced this week that a criminal botnet set up by Russian hackers that used hundreds of home and small office routers has now been shut down by court order. Read more...

'Mylobot' botnet infecting 50,000 devices per day worldwide

Justin Luna — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 14:20:01 +0000

A botnet called "Mylobot" is infecting over 50,000 devices daily, according to a recent report. Mylobot can download more malware, send spam emails, and even remain idle to avoid detection. Read more...

Cloudflare just stopped the biggest HTTPS DDoS attack on record

Paul Hill — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 22:24:01 +0000

Cloudflare has stopped the largest HTTPS DDoS attack on record. The botnet was making 26 million requests per second leveraging Cloud Service Providers' virtual machines and servers. Read more...

Microsoft names and shames a perpetrator behind ZLoader botnet to deter others

Usama Jawad — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 06:44:01 +0000

Microsoft has publicly revealed the identity and location of a perpetrator behind ZLoader in order to deter others. The person had developed a ZLoader component that is used to distribute ransomware. Read more...

Beware: New Kraken botnet easily fools Windows Defender and steals Crypto wallet data

Sayan Sen — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 06:52:01 +0000

A new crypto wallet information stealing Kraken botnet has been discovered by ZeroFox. The malware is able to easily bypass Windows Defender scans by simply adding itself as an exclusion. Read more...

Google takes action against Windows-targeting Glupteba botnet

Paul Hill — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 19:40:01 +0000

Google says it is working with partners to disrupt the resilient Glupteba botnet. It is also taking legal action against the suspected botnet operators to put a permanent stop to the botnet. Read more...

Hacker who commanded a 100,000+ strong bot army taken down by Ukrainian cops

Sayan Sen — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 15:04:01 +0000

A Ukraine-based hacker who created and coordinated various cyberattacks like DDoS, spamming, or brute-forcing, using his 100,000+ bots has been arrested today by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Read more...

Cloudflare says it handled the most monstrous DDoS attack ever like a total champ

Sayan Sen — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 20:34:02 +0000

Cloudflare says it mitigated the largest DDoS attack ever with the help of its in-house DDoS protection daemon. According to its data, this massive attack brought in 17.2 million requests per second. Read more...

Microsoft has disabled 94% of Trickbot's critical operational infrastructure

Usama Jawad — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 04:10:02 +0000

Microsoft has announced that it has taken down 120 out of 128 servers being utilized by the Trickbot botnet, an important stepping stone in digitally protecting the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Read more...

Microsoft disrupts Necurs botnet that infected nine million computers globally

Jay Bonggolto — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 22:06:01 +0000

Microsoft and its partners from 35 countries have disrupted the Necurs botnet, which has infected more than nine million computers across the world. The botnet was first seen in 2012. Read more...

Epic Games will focus on strengthening user account security this year

Usama Jawad — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 07:36:02 +0000

Epic Games has released a security bulletin detailing the steps that it takes to strengthen account security, as well as laying out its plans for the future, which include SMS-based authentication. Read more...

Massive botnet consisting of 90,000 fake Twitter profiles generated 30 million spam clicks

Faisal Ahmed — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 20:44:01 +0000

Social networking sites have been a target of malicious botnet attacks for a while now. A recent such attack, called SIREN, has stormed Twitter by injecting malicious content in tweets and bios. Read more...

Akamai's State of the Internet finds DDoS 'mega attacks' are increasing

Vlad Dudau — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 10:38:01 +0000

The latest report from the content distribution company shows that the number and overall scope of distributed denial of service attacks has gone up over the last year, even if that growth has slowed. Read more...

FTC offering up to $25,000 for help in securing IoT weaknesses

Joel Shedroff — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 22:44:01 +0000

In light of the DDoS attack that utilized IoT devices to cripple huge swaths of the internet last October, the FTC has launched a contest to find creative ways to secure "smart" products. Read more...

Mint Update now checks for TSUNAMI backdoor [Update]

Paul Hill — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 07:18:01 +0000

Linux Mint users have received an update to the mintUpdate package which will alert users if they're infected with the TSUNAMI backdoor. The backdoor can give hackers remote access to systems. Read more...

Microsoft leads FBI & Interpol coalition to destroy million strong botnet

Robert Brand — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 09:38:01 +0000

Microsoft leads EST, FBI, Interpol and Homeland Security to victory in taking down the million strong Win32/Dorkbot. Over the last six months the malware had been infecting over 100,000 PCs a month. Read more...

No-IP says Microsoft was "heavy-handed" with their domain takeover

Byron Hinson — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:30:28 +0000

Microsoft is said to have been "heavy-handed" after taking over around 23 domains run by No-IP to tackle malware. The takeover left millions of users unable to access No-IP services. Read more...

Microsoft helps feds take down GameOver Zeus botnet

Shreyas Gandhe — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 05:00:00 +0000

Continuing its fight against botnets, Microsoft has helped the FBI take down the GameOver Zeus botnet, which was one of the most active banking trojan of 2013 affecting thousands of computers. Read more...

Yahoo Mail accounts accessed with stolen passwords

Shreyas Gandhe — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 06:33:07 +0000

Yahoo has revealed through their official blog that passwords for some accounts have been stolen and used to gain access to Yahoo Mail in an organized effort from unknown sources. Read more...

Cyber attack: 750,000 malicious emails traced back to hacked home appliances

Jett Goldsmith — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 20:59:31 +0000

A California security firm says they have discovered the origin of a botnet which delivered over 750,000 malicious emails to home appliances, such as refrigerators, routers and televisions. Read more...

Microsoft claims ZeroAccess botnet has been abandoned

John Callaham — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 02:14:37 +0000

Microsoft has announced that due in part to the efforts of the company's Digital Crimes Unit, the creators of the criminal ZeroAccess botnet have now abandoned their activities. Read more...

Microsoft disrupts ZeroAccess botnet in collaboration with FBI and Europol

Andy Weir — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 04:09:54 +0000

Microsoft has revealed that it has disrupted a "rampant botnet" known as 'ZeroAccess' - which has so far infected almost two million PCs - in collaboration with the FBI, Europol and industry partners. Read more...

Two million passwords exposed thanks to botnet and malware infected PCs

Brad Sams — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 14:50:16 +0000

A botnet has gathered over two million passwords from infected machines and they are now circulating the web which means you should change your password if you think your account is affected. Read more...

Microsoft: 88 percent of Citadel botnets have been disrupted

John Callaham — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 19:07:05 +0000

Microsoft announced this week their recent operation to go after the Citadel criminal botnet has resulted in 88 percent of its servers being disrupted, with 40 percent of the PCs cleaned of malware. Read more...

Microsoft took down Rustock botnet thanks to 67 year old counterfeit law

John Callaham — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:29:05 +0000

Microsoft revealed this week that one of the many criminal botnets it has helped to shut down, the Rustock botnet, was accomplished because it was violating a 67 year old counterfeit law. Read more...

Microsoft: We freed "at least 2 million PCs" from Citadel botnet

John Callaham — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:33:49 +0000

Microsoft claims to have freed "at least 2 million PCs" from the criminal Citadel botnet that it went after earlier in June, although the people behind the botnet are still at large. Read more...

Microsoft works with FBI to disrupt over 1,400 Citadel botnets

John Callaham — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 06:03:02 +0000

Microsoft has revealed details of a joint operation with the FBI to disrupt over 1,400 Citadel botnets, which it claims have caused over $500 million in losses for individuals and businesses. Read more...

Microsoft to use Windows Azure to fight botnets in the cloud

John Callaham — Wed, 29 May 2013 23:11:56 +0000

Microsoft has announced its Digital Crimes Unit will be using Windows Azure as the basis for its Cyber Threat Intelligence Program, made to offer information to ISPs on known botnet malware infections Read more...

420,000 node botnet made from insecure embedded devices

Christopher White — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:56:10 +0000

A security "researcher" used vulnerabilities in embedded devices to create a huge botnet (dubbed Carna Botnet) that was then able to map out the Internet's IPv4 address range. Read more...

Microsoft & Symantec team up to take down Bamital botnet

John Callaham — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:11:17 +0000

Microsoft has announced it has teamed up with antivirus company Symantec to shut down the Bamital botnet which included a raid today on web hosting facilities in Virginia and New Jersey. Read more...

FBI announces arrest of 10 people over Butterfly Botnet

Paul Ferson — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:13:10 +0000

The FBI has confirmed the arrest of 10 people over the Butterfly Botnet; a botnet that, peaking at more than 11 million machines infected, harvesting details on bank accounts and passwords. Read more...

Microsoft settles with Kelihos botnet defendant

John Callaham — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 18:48:41 +0000

Microsoft has announced it has settled its case against Andrey N. Sabelnikov, which the company previously accused of being part of the now shut down Kelihos botnet. Read more...

Microsoft reaches settlement in Nitol botnet case

John Callaham — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:04:14 +0000

Microsoft has announced it has reached a settlement with the owner of a website domain that hosted the Nitol botnet. The domain owner will now help Microsoft to block PC access to the botnet. Read more...

Microsoft backhands Nitol botnet, makes it sit in the corner

John Callaham — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 16:34:49 +0000

Microsoft announced today that its Digital Crimes Unit got permission from a US federal court to go after 500 different versions of malware and disrupt the Nitol botnet. Read more...

Spam levels high as ever after the Grum botnet takedown

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:26:30 +0000

One month after the takedown of one of the largest botnets, levels of spam messages have returned back to “normal”. The spam industry is adapting to new ways of doing business, experts warn. Read more...

Grum botnet taken down, along with lots of spam emails

John Callaham — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:37:43 +0000

The Grum botnet, which may have been responsible for generating as much as 35 percent of spammed emails worldwide, was taken down earlier this week after being in operation for four years. Read more...

Google disputes claims of Android-based botnet

John Callaham — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 09:20:27 +0000

Google is disputing a recent claim from a Microsoft engineer that there is a botnet based on using malware-infected Android devices, with Google claiming that malware on PCs are to blame. Read more...

Microsoft employee finds evidence of Android botnet

John Callaham — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 22:10:24 +0000

A Microsoft engineer named Terry Zink has discovered evidence of a botnet using malware infected Android devices to send out spammed emails to others via Yahoo Mail. Read more...