Two Botnet Gangs Join Hands to Raise Profits

Botnet researcher Jose Nazario at Arbor Networks reports that two cyber-crime gangs are jointly working for spreading malware. MX Logic published this in news on December 11, 2009.

During an interaction with ZDNet, a tech news website, Nazario reported of finding Avalanche and Zeus collaborating for the promotion of their growth. He said that during the act, Avalanche was promoting Trojan Zeus.

It is noteworthy that the gangs responsible for the scheme have kept their identity concealed and one hardly knows anything about them.

Furthermore, Zeus malware is very sophisticated that's made to seize user credentials from infected PCs while keeping itself safe from anti-virus programs. Nazario also said that there were no less than several thousand compromised PCs in the Zeus botnet. ZDNet published this on December 11, 2009.

Besides, the Avalanche is a group that runs a botnet appearing like the one run by criminals behind Zeus, out of which two were lately detained in the UK.

Nazario further stated that it surprised Arbor researchers to find the two gangs collaborating; however, their joint activity seemed logical. Probably the gangs decided to collaborate to raise their profits.

Nazario also stated that the Arbor researchers felt momentarily confused and thrown for a tricky situation. But they found that the criminal gangs didn't compete directly, so they could boost each other's growth. In fact, both of them have been enjoying good standing in the market, according to Nazario.

Corroborating the news, investigator Vincent Hanna for the Spamhaus Project, the anti-spam company, stated that the gangs were utilizing each other's equipments based on mutually agreed payment terms. ZDNet published this on December 11, 2009.

Hanna said that there were cyber-criminals who lent networks of bots, and there were still others who hired those networks on rent. According to him, the same worms distributed e-mails that proved useful to different gangs. These worms were spammed either via attached malware or malicious URLs, Hanna added.

Hence, security analysts have said they were worried about the modern malware purveyors' growing organizational and technical skill. According to them, hacker groups were operating in increasing numbers as any other organized business for criminal acts.

Related article: THE SPAM MAFIA

» SPAMfighter News - 12/23/2009