Category Archives: Web Fraud 2.0

Homegrown: Rustock Botnet Fed by U.S. Firms

March 21, 2011
47 Comments

Aaron Wendel opened the doors of his business to some unexpected visitors on the morning of Mar. 16, 2011. The chief technology officer of Kansas City based hosting provider Wholesale Internet found that two U.S. marshals, a pair of computer forensics experts and a Microsoft lawyer had come calling, armed with papers allowing them to enter the facility and to commandeer computer hard drives and portions of the hosting firm’s network. Anyone attempting to interfere would be subject to arrest and prosecution.

Rustock Botnet Flatlined, Spam Volumes Plummet

March 16, 2011
48 Comments

The global volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide took a massive nosedive today following what appears to be a coordinated takedown of the Rustock botnet, one of the world’s most active spam-generating machines.

For years, Rustock has been the most prolific purveyor of spam — mainly junk messages touting online pharmacies and male enhancement pills. But late Wednesday morning Eastern Time, dozens of Internet servers used to coordinate these spam campaigns ceased operating, apparently almost simultaneously.

ZeuS Innovations: ‘No-$H!+ Reports’

March 16, 2011
41 Comments

Security experts long have warned computer users of the threat from “keystroke-logging” malware, malicious programs capable of recording your every keystroke. But the truth is, real bad guys don’t care about your everyday chit-chat. More importantly, their data-stealing creations tend to strip out or ignore anything that isn’t related to specific information they are seeking, such as credit card numbers and online bank account credentials.

ChronoPay’s Scareware Diaries

March 3, 2011
23 Comments

If your Microsoft Windows PC was attacked by fake anti-virus or “scareware” in the past few years, chances are good that the attack was made possible by ChronoPay, Russia’s largest processor of online payments.

Tens of thousands of documents stolen and leaked last year from ChronoPay offer a fascinating view into a company that has artfully cultivated and profited handsomely from the market for scareware, which hijacks victim PCs with fake security alerts in a bid to frighten users into paying for worthless security software.

Pharma Wars

February 25, 2011
34 Comments

It’s difficult to chronicle a battle in which neither side wants to admit publicly that he is fighting for his life, or indeed that he has even launched attacks against his enemy. But such is the nature of a business-feud-turned-turf-war that is now playing out slowly between bosses of two of the Internet’s largest illicit pharmacy operations.

SpamIt, Glavmed Pharmacy Networks Exposed

February 24, 2011
35 Comments

An organized crime group thought to include individuals responsible for the notorious Storm and Waledac worms generated more than $150 million promoting rogue online pharmacies via spam and hacking, according to data obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com.

Russian Cops Crash Pill Pusher Party

February 21, 2011
65 Comments

I recently returned from a trip to Russia, where I traveled in part to interview a few characters involved in running the world’s biggest illicit online pharmacies. I arrived just days after the real fireworks, when several truckloads of masked officers from Russian drug enforcement bureaus raided a party thrown exclusively for the top moneymakers of Rx-Promotion, a major e-pharmacy program co-owned by one of the men I went to meet.

eHarmony Hacked

February 10, 2011
27 Comments

Online dating giant eHarmony has begun urging users to change their passwords, after being alerted by KrebsOnSecurity.com to a potential security breach of customer information. Once again, the individual responsible for all the ruckus is an Argentinian hacker who recently claimed responsibility for a similar breach at competing e-dating site PlentyOfFish.com.