Dutch high-tech crime unit uncovers massive botnet
The high tech crime unit in the Netherlands arrested a 19-year-old Dutch man in mid-August. The man is thought to be at the centre of one of the world's largest modern botnets, the Shadow botnet.
Botnets are swarms of infected PCs connected to the Internet that generate attacks on various Web portals, as well as emails to infect other Internet users. They can even remotely steal users' card details. Whilst they are can effectively cripple major Web sites, most Internet users are unaware their machine has been infected as the botnet whirrs quietly away in the background, using a small amount of the host PC's resources.
For small business users, many of whom are on a capped broadband deal, this can cause problems, as the botnet traffic can end up costing them sizeable amounts of extra broadband usage charges. For small firms, therefore, botnet infections need to be removed.
Dutch Police asked Russian IT security vendor Kaspersky Lab, to help it develop instructions on to neutralise the malware on their systems and so disinfect the botnet from their machines. This is the first time a national police agency has linked with a IT security vendor on a project of this type.
The Shadow botnet consists of around 100,000 infected machines from all over the world, allow of which are controlled remotely.
Details on botnets and how to remove them can be found here
More information on viruses and malware, can be found in the following guide:
By Steve Gold, News Editor
