Mariposa Botnet Beheaded 177
northernboy and many other readers sent news of the beheading of the Mariposa botnet with three arrests in Spain. "Defense Intelligence of Ottawa working with ISPs and Spanish authorities have taken down yet another > 12M PC botnet, called Mariposa. The three top-level operators are in custody, but remain anonymous under Spanish law (how quaint: apparently in Spain, the accused have some right to privacy). AP is claiming that the botnet included systems in roughly half of the Fortune 1000 companies, scattered over 190 countries. Interesting details: none of the three principals has a prior criminal record. Although apparently hardworking, they are not uber-hackers, but rather had connections to the Spanish mafia, which apparently helped to equip them. At the time of arrest, they were not showing signs of their significant new income level. From the article: 'Chris Davis, CEO of Ottawa-based Defence Intelligence, said he noticed the infections when they appeared on networks of some of his firm's clients, including pharmaceutical companies and banks. It wasn't until several months later that he realized the infections were part of something much bigger. After seeing that some of the servers used to control computers in the botnet were located in Spain, Davis and researchers from the Georgia Tech Information Security Center joined with software firm Panda Security, which is headquartered in Bilbao, Spain. The investigators caught a few lucky breaks. For one, the suspects used Internet services that wound up cooperating with investigators. That isn't always the case.'"
Another... (Score:2, Funny)
Another one bites the dust...
Good for them, but I still don't see a noticeable reduction in my spam mail. Gotta keep working at it, guys.
Re:Another... (Score:5, Funny)
This was done much better than the previous one done by Microsoft. Catching the human masters and putting them in "federal pound me in the ass prison" is the right solution to this problem.
Re:apparently in Spain, the accused have privacy (Score:5, Funny)
The days of the Spanish inquisition are over.
I wasn't expecting that...
Re:Dumb Criminals (Score:5, Funny)
If I ever had to 'go rouge' I feel that I could last for years just off of common sense alone by using different public computers in a place with no cameras.
I think I might do the same if I ever go "rouge [wikipedia.org]".
Re:apparently in Spain, the accused have privacy (Score:3, Funny)
well obviously you weren't, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Re:apparently in Spain, the accused have privacy (Score:1, Funny)
The days of the Spanish inquisition are over.
I wasn't expecting that...
No one ever does.
Re:apparently in Spain, the accused have privacy (Score:1, Funny)
NOBODY EXPECTS /. to setup such an obvious punchline to an overused Monty Python skit.
Re:Another... (Score:3, Funny)
...putting them in "federal pound me in the ass prison"...
This isn't Riyadh. You know they're not gonna saw your hands off here, alright? The worst they would ever do is they would put you for a couple of months into a white-collar, minimum-security resort! Shit, we should be so lucky! Do you know, they have conjugal visits there?