Russian pleads guilty in US to operating Kelihos botnet
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US dismantles Kelihos botnet after Russian hacker’s arrest
/in Computer SecurityThe arrest last week of a Russian man in Spain was apparently for his role in a massive spam botnet and not related to an ongoing investigation into foreign tampering with last year’s U.S. election.
The botnet, called Kelihos, has enslaved hundreds of thousands of computers, and distributed spam and malware to users across the globe. However, the U.S. has taken action to dismantle the illegal operation, the Department of Justice said on Monday.
The arrest of 36-year-old Peter Yuryevich Levashov, the botnet’s alleged operator, was at first thought to be related to the ongoing U.S. investigation of presidential election-related hacking, but the DOJ said on Monday that wasn’t the case.
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Hackers prey on Russian patriotism to grow the Kelihos botnet
/in Computer SecurityThe cybercriminal gang behind the Kelihos botnet is tricking users into installing malware on their computers by appealing to pro-Russian sentiments stoked by recent international sanctions against the country.
Researchers from security firms Websense and Bitdefender have independently observed a new spam campaign that encourages Russian-speakers to volunteer their computers for use in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the websites of governments that imposed sanctions on Russia for its involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
“We, a group of hackers from the Russian Federation, are worried about the unreasonable sanctions that Western states imposed against our country,” the spam emails read, according to a translation by Bitdefender researchers. “We have coded our answer and below you will find the link to our program. Run the application on your computer, and it will secretly begin to attack government agencies of the states that have adopted those sanctions.”
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Microsoft’s Kelihos botnet suspect used to work for computer security firm – naked security
/in Computer SecurityMicrosoft has named a 31-year-old Russian, who used to work at a firm producing anti-virus and firewall software, believing him to be responsible for attacks perpetrated by the Kelihos botnet. Andrey Sabelnikov, of St Petersburg, Russia, has …
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