Security Featured Article

There’s new ZeuS botnetvirus in town, and already it’s made quite an impact on Internet security.

 

According to NetWitness, a company that offers advanced persistent threat detection and real-time network forensics, the “Kneber botnet” virus has breached 75,000 systems in 2,500 organizations around the world. The virus gathers login credentials to online financial systems, social networking sites and e-mail systems from infested computers and reports those details to cyber criminals who can use the data to break into accounts, steal corporate and government information, and replicate personal, online and financial, the company said.

 

A botnet is a group of infected computers that hackers can control from one central computer.

 

Company officials first learned of the attack in January during a routine deployment its NetWitness (News - Alert) software. Further investigation revealed that there was an “extensive compromise” of commercial and government systems, including 68,000 corporate login credentials, access to email systems, online banking sites, Facebook (News - Alert), Yahoo, Hotmail and other social networking credentials.

 

“Cyber criminal elements, like the Kneber crew quietly and diligently target and compromise thousands of government and commercial organizations across the globe,” Amit Yoran, CEO of NetWitness and former director of the national cyber security division, said. “Conventional malware protection and signature based intrusion detection systems are by definition inadequate for addressing Kneber or most other advanced threats. Organizations which focus on compliance as the objective of their information security programs and have not kept pace with the rapid advances of the threat environment will not see this Trojan until the damage already has occurred.”