Spanish police arrest masterminds of 'massive' botnet

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Spanish police have revealed that they have arrested three men responsible for one of the world's biggest networks of virus-infected computers.

All are Spanish citizens with no criminal records and limited hacking skills.

It is estimated that the so-called Mariposa botnet was made up of nearly 13 million computers in 190 countries.

It included PCs inside more than half of Fortune 1000 companies and more than 40 major banks, investigators said.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8547453.stm

[Ian David]

1. The BotNet eats old peoples' medicine for fuel. n/t

[L0oniX]

2. heheh ...I used to do that too ...but I only had 45 bots. Stupid idiots didn't know when to quit.

I didn't figure it would stay so easy to do either.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. If what you were doing was legal, why did the other poster get under your skin?

[L0oniX]

15. ...

The "shame on you" remark.

[patrice]

22. Always a good! question.

[liberation]

24. ... and then you woke up.

Dreams are like that, having trouble distinguishing between your fantasy and reality however.... that is a more serious matter.

[L0oniX]

28. I can't help it that people don't know about protecting irc chat channels with eggdrops.

My guess is that you are one of them.

[Soylent Brice]

4. ZERO COOL SRIKES AGAIN!!!

[L0oniX]

10. LOL

[Soylent Brice]

14. almost there... ALMOST THERE...

[gratuitous]

5. Grovelbot doin' the perp walk

Somebody had to say it. Don't know why it was me this time, but whaddya gonna do?

[AsahinaKimi]

6. I think this is good news..

I have a computer sitting in my closet, shut down because of a virus. I need to have it taken to be cleaned, and fixed. Because of these kinds of people who do this kind of stuff, I have been forced to use a very old computer that can hardly surf the net without freezing up or stalling out.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Can't you just get a subsitute hard drive

or wouldn't that work ?

[thecrow]

11. Some people don't have that kind of money

and that should not be lightly taken, even in this throwaway society.

[dipsydoodle]

12. I wasn't trying to be flippant

I was asking a question.

[Occulus]

20. But for the price of getting it fixed the poster could buy a brand new drive that has more space.

Or, the poster could use the process I described in this thread in the Open Source forum here at DU to get to the drive using Ubuntu, format it there (because Windows viruses can't infect a linux filesystem ;) ), and POOF, good as new. The advantage to doing it that way is that, once the Ubuntu system is set up on a USB stick, it's configured for that PC's hardware and no other, meaning it won't work properly (or maybe even at all) if someone grabs it and tries it on their own PC.

Never, ever pay for support if you don't need to. The price for getting the drive cleaned will cover at least the price of a new drive, and probably a larger one at that (depending on whether the poster's computer has SATA capability or not). In any case, an answer to the problem is at the link above; it is a somewhat involved process (especially for someone who doesn't really know what they're doing), and the poster will more likely than not want his/her local guru computer geek friend to stop by and set it up, but it's beats the snot out of paying for something that, honestly, can be done in an hour or two at home.

[L. Coyote]

16. Download malwarebytes to a memory stick and

start up in SAFE MODE. Login as Admin and install and run the app.

[Occulus]

21. That's probably easier than the process I posted

the poster will still have to go into the BIOS and set it to boot from USB, though.

I didn't know Malwarebytes was capable of functioning in that way. Thanks!

[L. Coyote]

27. You have to restart in SAFE MODE first

Hit F8 s soon as the prompt appears after clicking ON.

Scroll up to SAFE MODE in the DOS prompt an ENTER.

Scroll to select the OP an hit ENTER.

You do this in SAFE because the Worm has your User under control.

NOW, start a folder on C and put the intaller App there.

ALSO, run SmithFrauFix in SAFE MODE only to not miss stuff.


This should identify the time stamp of the problem(s).
Go after that time in your files and see what else happened.
Were new files created with ramdom names?
Empty all user prefetch files, since these may preload your virus files.

RESTART.

Look in Task Manager and record the names of all process running under the user and system. Check what the are, when created, etc.

[Threedifferentones]

30. It should not be hard to "fix" your comp

I have never heard of a virus that prevents you from re-installing windows, though I am certainly no expert. Put in a windows CD, and install Windows again, choosing to wipe out the old installation. You'll lose everything you had on that comp, and it will take a while to install and update all the drivers and software you need, but you'll have your comp back.

[AlphaCentauri]

8. Hope some day they get the spamers too

spam is another anoying crap in the net

[L. Coyote]

17. and the link to how we detect this bot n our PCS is where? Frikkiin' BBC is useless

again!! A little useful combat gear would be nice.

[LostInAnomie]

18. People that make viruses and malware should have their hands cut off.

Or, just killed. Either way, I have no pity for them.

[4lbs]

25. In many of the former Soviet Bloc countries, students learn to create viruses and trojans as part of

their normal computer courses.

That's where much of the virus code has originated.

[liberation]

26. No they don't....

... they simply have a lot of very educated people, with way too much free time in their hands. The job market over there being what it is...

[RedRocco]

29. I have always suspected

the anti-virus vendors or releasing virii to drive sales

[Lars77]

19. access denied aaargh

[brewens]

23. This might be one case where I would look the other way if "enhanced interrogation"

techniques were used.