Mariposa botnet busted by Spanish police

By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor Published: 3:38PM GMT 03 March 2010

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Three Spanish men with "limited" hacking experience are believed to be at the back of the immeasurable Mariposa botnet Photo: CLARE KENDALL

The 3 men are believed to be at the back of the Mariposa botnet, a network of around thirteen million computer in 190 countries that have been putrescent with a pathogen that allows hackers and cyber criminals to benefit remote entrance to PCs. The pathogen exploited a disadvantage in Microsoft"s Internet Explorer web browser, and was additionally upheld from appurtenance to appurtenance by the use of pity putrescent mental recall sticks.

This hulk "botnet" enclosed computers inside the bureau of some-more than 40 vital banks and high form companies on the Fortune 1000 index.

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"It would be simpler for me to yield a list of the Fortune 1000 companies that weren"t compromised," Christopher Davis, arch comparison manager of security organisation Defence Intelligence, told the BBC.

The men, all Spanish citizens, are pronounced to have singular hacking experience. One part of was traced after he logged on to the botnet network but initial disguising the singular IP residence of his computer, permitting military to lane him down.

The Mariposa botnet was taken offline in Dec after a outrageous review involving the FBI and Guardia Civil in Spain. The botnet was being used to take supportive report from oblivious computer users, together with usernames, passwords, login sum for promissory note sites and credit label data.

"This is really shocking since it proves how worldly and in effect malware placement program has become," pronounced Pedro Bustamante, a comparison investigate confidant at Panda Security. "It"s lenient comparatively inexperienced cyber criminals to inflict vital repairs and monetary loss."

The Spanish squad "rented" tools of the botnet to alternative cyber criminals in sell for cash, and sole stolen promissory note and credit label report to third parties.

"Mariposa"s the greatest botnet ever to be close down, but this is usually the tip of the iceberg," pronounced Mark Rasch, the former head of the computer crimes section at the Department of Justice in the United States. "These things come up constantly."